Engineering Director (finance solutions)

Location: Munich, Germany (3 days/week in the office)
TR Ref: RCDB/13585

This highly successful, PE-owned, eCommerce company are accelerating their already impressive growth, by doubling headcount in the next two years and targeting a staggering €10bn European turnover by 2028.

To scale at this pace they are hiring an engineering leader to transform their corporate finance solutions, along with the associated support and business insights. You will build and lead a team of about 40 Software Engineers, located across Europe, with further headcount anticipated, covering: Financial Reporting (statutory reporting); Financial Management (financial planning and budgeting, settlements & payments and treasury & tax management); Accounting (reconciliations, indirect purchasing, general ledger, asset management and banking).

This role reports to the VP of Engineering and will partner with the CFO, CIO and other Engineering Directors and leaders. You will consult on, and support, the creation of the finance solutions roadmap and then drive the execution of this roadmap, and the engineering strategy, all through a period of significant transformation and growth across the organisation.

The Key Asks:

• Set up and oversee the company’s finance IT systems, using a blend of off-the-shelf and customised/integrated. solutions, along with internally developed applications, for both greenfield and brownfield application.
• Ensure the finance solutions landscape is transparent and reliable.
• Build, lead and develop a high-performing team, across several engineering groups, ensuring effective talent management (career paths, hiring, balancing teams, training etc) and alignment across cross-functional, geographically dispersed teams.
• Management and automation of financial reporting processes.
• Partner with senior engineering, finance and product execs to define business and financial goals, to drive accountability and ownership.
• Partner with the Product Finance team to support the triannual planning process and provide data driven support for trade-off discussions across the product roadmap.
• Roll up, track and report the financial impact of key product initiatives, collaborating with cross functional finance teams.
• Support local accounting departments in improving financial procedures and performance.
• Create, orchestrate and strategically adjust your team’s activities, policies and practices to meet KPIs and CSat goals.
• Develop technology roadmaps to address functional gaps and drive value.
• Align corporate strategy with various global entities to ensure successful future planning integrations.
• Quantify cost impact and value captured through finance solution investments and partner integration activities.
• Develop and implement the engineering strategy, together with the CIO and other Heads of Engineering, including methodologies, practices and technologies.
• Drive continuous improvement processes (Kaizen).
• Foster a collaborative, cross-location culture.
• Develop forecasts, budgets and reporting for all engineering domains, including roll up of resourcing/ROI views and KPIs leading to a unified financial and business story for finance and other business leaders.
• Report, analyze, and translate data into key insights that drive strategic decision making at exec level.
• Enhance cooperation and interaction between finance and rest of the company.
• Set challenging objectives (team and individual) and trust people to get on with them.
• Continuously challenge systems, processes and people.

Experience Needed:

• Proven experience as an Engineering Director of Finance Systems, or similar, with a minimum of 15 years’ relevant experience, including leading the development of global Accounting/Reporting/Controlling/Analytics systems for high growth, online, tech or financial services companies.
• At least 7 yrs experience building and leading high-performing engineering teams of 30+ heads, along with demonstrable experience managing managers.
• Degree in business, finance/accounting or similar field is required. [Master’s degree, MBA or an accounting qualification, such as CPA, is preferred].
• In-depth knowledge of corporate finance and accounting principles, laws and best practices, along with a solid knowledge of financial analysis and forecasting and with exceptional Excel skills, including financial modeling and working with large data sets.
• Proficient in SAP finance modules (eg FICO, FICA, SF, CFIN), or other financial management platforms, with experience also of reporting systems (Essbase, BPC etc), dashboards (Tableau, QlikView etc) and associated processes such as O2C.
• Passionate about software engineering best practice include agile, continuous delivery, micro services and measurement.
• Effective leading in a fast-paced, cross-functional, global organisation, demonstrating cultural sensitivity and excellent stakeholder management skills.
• Detail oriented, analytical and strategically minded, with excellent organisation, communication (English language), influencing and negotiating skills. Effective aligning potentially conflicting views.

This Engineering Director role will see you connecting people, ideas, processes and issues to deliver the finance and accounting solutions needed to achieve our client’s ambitious growth plans. We’re looking for someone who will thrive in a collaborative environment, sharing resources, knowledge, ideas and skills and build helpful, productive relationships across the organisation. You will be a naturally positive, optimistic person, who can be diplomatic, patient and open-minded with your team but concise and transparent with the VP and CIO.

Salary will be commensurate with a senior software leadership role, along with an annual 25% bonus (which pays from 0-140%, based on individual and company performance), car allowance and a range of other benefits.

This is a hybrid working role requiring you to be in their Munich (city centre) office an average of 3 days a week, but you can work from home the other days.