Finance Business Partner, R&D

About Us:

Notion helps you build beautiful tools for your life’s work. In today's world of endless apps and tabs, Notion provides one place for teams to get everything done, seamlessly connecting docs, notes, projects, calendar, and email—with AI built in to find answers and automate work. Millions of users, from individuals to large organizations like Toyota, Figma, and OpenAI, love Notion for its flexibility and choose it because it helps them save time and money.

In-person collaboration is essential to Notion's culture. We require all team members to work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, our designated Anchor Days. Certain teams or positions may require additional in-office workdays.

About the Role:

Our Strategic Finance Business Partnership team serves as a trusted advisor to the company, driving our financial planning, forecasting, and review processes, and guiding critical decisions through insightful analyses and strategic thought partnership. We’re looking for a Strategic Finance Business Partner to support our R&D (EPD) organization and own the finance relationship with our CTO and Co-founder/CPO.

This is a high-impact role on a lean team: you’ll operate independently, bring structure to ambiguous problems, and influence senior leaders with clear financial narratives. You’ll partner deeply across Engineering, Product, and Design leadership to strengthen executive-level visibility into financial performance, improve forecast accuracy, and evaluate strategic investments across our product and platform roadmap.

What You'll Achieve:

• Serve as the primary strategic finance partner to the CTO and CPO for EPD planning, forecasting, reporting, and key decision-making. Build trusted relationships with EPD leads and proactively surface insights, risks, and opportunities.

• Build financial models to evaluate investment opportunities and strategic initiatives (e.g., vendor and tooling decisions, infrastructure spend).

• Develop and refine scalable reporting and analytical frameworks to increase transparency and decision velocity, and guide day-to-day execution and strategy.

• Prepare high-quality materials for executive and Board-level reviews, translating complex financial and operational information into clear, concise narratives.

• Partner with Accounting to ensure accurate and timely reporting, provide clear narratives for variances, and translate results into actionable recommendations for executives and functional leaders.

• Drive process improvements through AI and automation to streamline workflows and strengthen planning discipline, forecasting accuracy, and cross-functional alignment.

• Execute ad hoc analyses for executive requests and time-sensitive decisions with strong judgment, speed, and attention to detail.

Skills You'll Need to Bring:

• 6+ years of progressive experience in FP&A/Strategic Finance, investment banking, accounting, private equity, or a combination; experience directly supporting technical organizations (R&D) strongly preferred.

• Strong financial modeling (Advanced Excel/Google Sheets) and analytical capabilities, with comfort handling ambiguity and connecting financial outcomes to operational drivers.

• High standards for accuracy, follow-through, and ownership; independent & “get it done” attitude with strong attention to detail and minimal need for oversight.

• Exceptional communication and executive presence. Ability to influence executives with concise, structured storytelling and clear recommendations.

• Strong cross-functional partnership skills and a collaborative, low-ego working style; able to work effectively with cross-functional partners, including Engineering/Product/Design, Accounting, and Procurement.

• Familiarity with AI tools such as Claude Code, Gemini, or Codex is a plus. You don’t need to be an AI expert, but you’re curious and willing to adopt AI tools to work smarter and deliver better results!

Nice to Haves:

• Experience at a high-growth SaaS company.

• Familiarity with planning and reporting systems (e.g., Anaplan, Adaptive Planning, Pigment).

• Experience with ERP/accounting systems (e.g., NetSuite) and partnering closely with Accounting for close/actuals.

• Basic SQL skills is a plus

We hire talented and passionate people from a variety of backgrounds because we want our global employee base to represent the wide diversity of our customers. If you’re excited about a role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every bullet point listed in the job description, we still encourage you to apply. If you’re a builder at heart, share our company values, and enthusiastic about making software toolmaking ubiquitous, we want to hear from you.

Notion is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Notion considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Notion is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please let your recruiter know.

Notion is committed to providing highly competitive cash compensation, equity, and benefits. The compensation offered for this role will be based on multiple factors such as location, the role’s scope and complexity, and the candidate’s experience and expertise, and may vary from the range provided below. For roles based in San Francisco, the estimated base salary range for this role is $185,000 - 215,000 per year.

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