About the role
Organizations everywhere struggle under the crushing costs and complexities of “solutions” that promise to simplify their lives. To create a better experience for their customers and employees. To help them grow. Software is a choice that can make or break a business. Create better or worse experiences. Propel or throttle growth. Business software has become a blocker instead of ways to get work done. There’s another option. Freshworks. With a fresh vision for how the world works. Freshworks Inc. builds uncomplicated service software that delivers exceptional employee and customer experiences. Our people-first approach to AI eliminates friction, helping businesses reduce complexity, lower cost-to-serve, and deliver faster, more human support through enterprise-grade yet easy-to-use CX and IT solutions. Nearly 75,000 companies, including Bridgestone, New Balance, Nucor, S&P Global, and Sony Music, trust Freshworks to power their Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX) operations. Fresh vision. Real impact. Come build it with us. We are seeking a strategic FP&A Manager to serve as a dedicated finance business partner to our global Product & Engineering organization. This is a high-impact individual contributor role designed for a finance professional who enjoys influencing product strategy—not just reporting financial results. You will partner directly with Product & Engineering leadership to connect technical development and product roadmaps to strategic financial outcomes, challenge business assumptions, and optimize how we allocate our global technical resources. You will own budgeting, forecasting, and performance management for the organization. Success in this role is measured by your ability to translate pricing and packaging models and headcount plans into actionable financial models, providing the executive team with the clarity needed to drive disciplined product innovation and growth.
What You'll Do Partner with Product and Engineering leadership, providing critical financial guidance that influences product roadmap prioritization. Lead the annual planning, monthly forecasting, and long-range planning cycles for the R&D organization, connecting operational metrics to corporate financial plans. Set up and manage cost dashboards, leveraging native tools (AWS Cost Explorer, Google Cloud Billing) and third-party platforms to provide transparency to leadership and engineering teams. Develop and distribute comprehensive financial packages, highlighting budget variances, project-level spend, and key operational trends to identify areas of risk and opportunity. Analyze and track key performance indicators specific to SaaS product health. Build data-driven scenario models and business cases evaluating the financial impact of pricing & packaging changes and new product introductions. Partner closely with Accounting during the monthly close to ensure accurate accruals and deliver meaningful variance analysis on discretionary engineering spend. Draft clear financial narratives, dashboards, and slides summarizing Product and Engineering productivity for use in senior executive reviews. 5-8 years of FP&A or Strategic Finance experience, preferably within a high-growth SaaS environment Highly motivated self-starter with the ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment, simultaneously manage several priorities, and challenge the status quo to lead change and operational improvements Attention to details and ability to synthesize large volumes of data into insightful recommendations to the executive leadership team Strong experience in business partnering in a technology company with a proven track record of influencing executive decision-making through financial insights Advanced Excel and Google Sheets skills with demonstrated experience building complex, scalable operational and financial forecasting models. Experience with NetSuite and Adaptive Planning is preferred Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to translate technical engineering jargon into clear business recommendations for Finance leadership A proactive drive to improve reporting workflows, utilizing automation and modern finance tools to shift bandwidth from transactional reporting to strategic analysis. Please note this is a hybrid role with onsite expectations of 3x/week (Tues - Thurs) from our San Mateo, CA headquarters. The annual base salary range for this position is $150,000 - $190,000. This role is also eligible for a target