About Lumen
Lumen connects the world. We are igniting business growth by connecting people, data and applications - quickly, securely, and effortlessly. Together, we are building a culture and company from the people up - committed to teamwork, trust and transparency. People power progress.
We're looking for top-tier talent and offer the flexibility you need to thrive and deliver lasting impact. Join us as we digitally connect the world and shape the future.
The Role
We're seeking a Senior Finance Manager who thrives in partnering across organizations and rolling up their sleeves to solve problems. Someone keen on implementing AI to improve manual work streams and rapidly drive key insight identification.
This role supports the financial story from cost quote to long-term performance tracking.
If building great processes and pushing meaningful change energize you, this is your role.
The Main Responsibilities
Costing Leadership
Drive forward simplification of existing cost models to enable scalable bases for new services and offerings.
Partner with Pricing teams to improve strategic pricing opportunities through identification of potential excess allocations and opportunities for optimization.
Partner across organizations and business units to build and develop a seamless solution and review process.
Develop and enhance costing controls for new model builds and model updates.
Standardize governance routines for cost model lifecycle management, including maintaining documentation, versioning, and audit-readiness.
Product Margin Development
Understand relationship between costs and revenues and how to ensure appropriate alignment between the two.
Identify key opportunities to minimize costs and maximize margins through effective validation of underlying cost components and their appropriateness.
Continuously validate cost assumptions and update models as needed.
Review allocated costs for accuracy and secure stakeholder alignment through quarterly reviews.
Deepen understanding of balance sheet and implications on future costs.
Lead strategic planning and forecasting for profitability, ensuring alignment with product life cycle and roadmap, anticipating technology changes and organization shifts.
Ensure alignment between pricing strategy, cost structures, and margin targets.
Advanced Modeling, Automation & Process Improvement
Advance reporting standardization and rationalization across margin and costing functions.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives to simplify and scale margin and costing processes.
Oversee builds of complex financial models for scenario planning, cost optimization, and variance analysis to proactively identify.
Create repeatable end-to-end automated solutions that minimize manual intervention and improve data integrity to support all business partners.
Partner with internal stakeholders to develop key reporting dashboards illustrating up-to-date margin reporting.
Establish and maintain key KPI metrics around margin and costing accuracy.
Develop AI agents to minimize and eliminate non-value add processes, streamlining identification of financial insights, enabling rapid detection of anomalies.
Improve existing data to identify and improve end-to-end processes.
Identify and mitigate risks related to cost attribution, data integrity, model accuracy, and margin exposure.
Establish an issue-escalation framework for cost or margin anomalies to ensure timely resolution.
Controls & Close Alignment
Ensure costing models, and automated solutions tie to general ledger actuals during month-end close and throughout the month.
Partner with Accounting, SOX teams to validate accruals, deferrals, true-ups, and ensure compliance with internal controls.
Maintain audit-ready documentation and ensure all margin and costing processes meet controllership standards.
Strategic Roadmap & Capability Development
Define and own the multi-year roadmap for margin governance, costing maturity, automation, and data quality evolution.
Prioritize initiatives and sequence capability improvements in alignment with product, FP&A, IT/Data, and operational strategies.
Executive Engagement
Meet regularly with senior leadership, presenting financial insights and recommendations.
Deliver high-impact presentations using PowerPoint, translating complex data into clear, actionable narratives.
Become a trusted advisor to all leadership levels.
Team Leadership
Foster a collaborative and supportive team culture through modeling Lumen's leadership behaviors.
Encourage resilience and forward momentum in all teams, not just your own.
Empower and elevate your team through clear and meaningful 1:1 coaching and establishing skill development strategy.
Lead a change management focused organization, always working to improve.
Lead cross-organizational change management for new processes, tools, or governance frameworks.
Develop workforce plans, including capacity assessment, skill-gap identification, and succession planning for key costing and margin roles.
Define team structure and role clarity to support long-term capability growth and operational scalability.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner with all teams (Product, Operations, Sales, Engineering, etc.) teams to align financial goals with business priorities.
Develop multi-use reporting to support business partners internally.
Deliver insights beyond the surface level cost and margin results.
What We Look For in a Candidate
What We Look For in a Candidate
Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or equivalent work experience (MBA or CPA preferred).
8+ years of progressive experience in finance, with a focus on margin analysis, unit costing, and modeling.
Strong knowledge of telecom industry economics and SaaS cost structures.
Expertise in advanced Excel modeling and financial systems (SAP, Oracle, Hyperion).
Proven track record in process automation and improvement.
Exceptional presentation and storytelling skills using PowerPoint.
Ability to connect dots others miss, challenge assumptions, and influence decisions.
Experience leading teams and collaborating with senior executives.
Lumen 8 Behaviors in Action
Clear is Kind: Communicate clearly and directly to deliver the best results.
Acts Boldly: Challenge the status quo and lead with courage.
Owns the Outcome: Take initiative and deliver results.
Simplifies: Turn complexity into clarity.
Builds Trust: Foster transparency and collaboration.
Compensation
This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.
Location Based Pay Ranges:
$132,232 - $176,310 in these states: AL, AR, AZ, FL, GA, IA, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, ME, MO, MS, MT, ND, NE, NM, OH, OK, PA, SC, SD, TN, UT, VT, WI, WV, and WY.
$138,844 - $185,124 in these states: CO, HI, MI, MN, NC, NH, NV, OR, and RI.
$145,456 - $193,940 in these states: AK, CA, CT, DC, DE, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NY, TX, VA, and WA.
Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.
Learn more about Lumen's:
Benefits (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/benefits-statement)
Bonus Structure
Requisition #: 341244
Background Screening
If you are selected for a position, there will be a background screen, which may include checks for criminal records and/or motor vehicle reports and/or drug screening, depending on the position requirements. For more information on these checks, please refer to the Post Offer section of our FAQ page (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/faq) . Job-related concerns identified during the background screening may disqualify you from the new position or your current role. Background results will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
Equal Employment Opportunities
We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, pregnancy, or other legally protected status (collectively, "protected statuses"). We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.
Disclaimer
The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions.
In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.
Please be advised that Lumen does not require any form of payment from job applicants during the recruitment process. All legitimate job openings will be posted on our official website or communicated through official company email addresses. If you encounter any job offers that request payment in exchange for employment at Lumen, they are not for employment with us, but may relate to another company with a similar name.
