Finance Associate Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

Type: Full-Time

About Pheratech

Pheratech Systems is building the coordination layer for the next generation of autonomous systems. Our technology enables heterogeneous robots to reason, coordinate, and operate together as decentralized teams in complex and communications-degraded environments.

We are a small, fast-growing team working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and national security. As we scale our technical organization, government programs, manufacturing capabilities, and commercial operations, we are building the financial infrastructure required to support that growth.

We are looking for a Finance Associate to help build and operate that infrastructure from the ground up.

The Role

As Pheratech’s Finance Associate, you will work closely with the Chief Operating Officer and CEO across nearly every aspect of the company’s finances.

This is not a narrowly defined accounting role. You will help manage the company’s financial operations, build budgets and forecasts, track program economics, support government contracting, improve financial systems and controls, and provide leadership with the information needed to make better decisions.

Because Pheratech is an early-stage company, the scope will be broad. On any given week, you might update our company forecast, analyze spending against a government program budget, work with our accounting firm to close the books, reconcile procurement data, prepare materials for leadership or investors, or build a financial model for a new initiative.

You’ll have an unusual amount of responsibility and visibility into how an early-stage deep-tech company is built.

What You'll Do

Financial Planning & Analysis

• Maintain and improve company budgets, forecasts, and financial models
• Track actual performance against budget and investigate material variances
• Maintain cash and runway forecasts
• Develop departmental and program-level financial reporting
• Build models to support hiring, purchasing, manufacturing, facilities, and other major operating decisions
• Produce recurring financial reporting for company leadership

Financial Operations

• Help manage accounts payable, accounts receivable, expense management, reimbursements, purchasing, and financial workflows
• Maintain accurate financial records and supporting documentation
• Coordinate with external accountants, tax advisors, payroll providers, and other financial partners
• Support monthly and quarterly close processes
• Improve internal financial controls and approval processes
• Help build scalable finance systems as the company grows

Government Program Finance

• Track budgets, expenditures, and financial performance across government contracts and R&D programs
• Maintain program-level cost tracking and forecasts
• Support invoicing, financial reporting, and documentation requirements
• Work with program and contracting functions to ensure costs are appropriately tracked against contractual requirements
• Support proposal budgets, cost volumes, ROMs, and pricing exercises
• Help develop systems capable of supporting increasingly complex government contracting requirements

Strategic Finance

• Conduct financial analysis for major company decisions
• Evaluate investments in headcount, infrastructure, manufacturing, equipment, and new programs
• Develop scenario and sensitivity analyses
• Support company-level operating and long-range planning
• Help leadership understand the financial implications of strategic decisions

Corporate Finance & Reporting

• Support preparation of financial materials for leadership, the Board, and investors
• Maintain key company financial metrics and reporting
• Assist with capitalization and equity-related financial administration
• Support financing, diligence, insurance, audit, tax, and other corporate finance processes as needed
• Help maintain organized and diligence-ready financial records

Build the Function

• Identify gaps in our financial processes and fix them
• Automate repetitive reporting and financial workflows
• Establish documentation and processes that allow the finance function to scale
• Take ownership of ambiguous financial and operational problems that do not come with a playbook

Who We're Looking For

We’re looking for someone who is analytical, meticulous, curious, and unusually comfortable taking ownership.

You might come from investment banking, consulting, FP&A, accounting, corporate finance, defense contracting, or an early-stage startup. We care less about having followed a particular career path than whether you can understand a complicated problem, work through the details, and produce something leadership can rely on.

You should have:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, accounting, business, mathematics, engineering, or another analytically rigorous field
• 0-3 years of relevant professional experience
• Strong financial modeling and analytical skills
• Excellent Excel or Google Sheets skills
• Strong quantitative reasoning and attention to detail
• Ability to communicate financial information clearly to non-finance teammates
• Ability to independently organize and execute ambiguous projects
• Strong judgment and discretion when handling confidential information
• A willingness to work across both strategic questions and unglamorous operational details
• Genuine interest in startups, robotics, aerospace, defense, or other technically complex businesses

Nice to Have

• Experience with government contracting, FAR/DFARS environments, or government contract accounting
• Familiarity with indirect rates, allowable costs, cost-plus contracts, fixed-price contracts, or government invoicing
• Experience with financial planning and forecasting
• Experience with QuickBooks, Unanet, Ramp/Rho, Rippling, or similar financial and operating systems
• Experience supporting audits, diligence, or financial close
• Experience building dashboards or automating financial workflows
• Accounting coursework, CPA-track experience, or familiarity with GAAP
• Experience in aerospace, defense, robotics, manufacturing, or another hardware-intensive industry

What Success Looks Like:

Within your first year, we want you to become the person who can answer:

What are we spending? Where are we spending it? How are we performing against plan? What will our financial position look like six or twelve months from now? How are individual programs performing financially? And what does leadership need to know to make the next decision?

You will help take Pheratech from startup finance being something managed through spreadsheets, outside providers, and executive attention to a repeatable financial operating system capable of supporting a rapidly scaling company and increasingly complex government programs.

Why Pheratech

This is an opportunity to join early enough that you will not simply inherit a finance organization. You will help build one.

You’ll work directly with company leadership, gain exposure to decisions that would typically sit several levels above an associate role, and develop experience spanning startup finance, government contracting, strategic planning, manufacturing, and company operations.

As Pheratech grows, we expect the sophistication and scale of the finance function to grow with it.

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This position will require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws and regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (“ITAR”) and/or the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”). Please note that any offer for employment will be conditioned on authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export control laws and regulations without sponsorship for an export license.