Business Planning Manager Jobs in South San Francisco, CA

About Neuralink:

We are creating devices that enable a bi-directional interface with the brain. These devices allow us to restore movement to the paralyzed, restore sight to the blind, and revolutionize how humans interact with their digital world.

Team Description:

The Finance Team at Neuralink plays a pivotal role in fueling our mission to develop groundbreaking brain-machine interfaces that restore autonomy to individuals with unmet medical needs. We provide the financial insights and strategies that enable rapid innovation, efficient scaling, and sustainable growth in a high-stakes, fast-paced environment. If you are a dynamic finance leader passionate about blending strategic acumen with hands-on execution to drive technological breakthroughs, this team is for you.

Job Description and Responsibilities:

As the first Financial Analyst focused on Engineering in Neuralink's broader Finance organization, you will report directly to the Strategic Finance Lead and serve as a foundational team member in supporting and shaping Neuralink's Strategic Finance function. Candidates for this role should be excited to partner closely with and support key stakeholders across Neuralink's engineering teams, namely manufacturing and hardware development teams. Once on board, you will help manage and be responsible for owning the unit economics of the N1 implantable device, adjacent durable and surgical accessories as well as the R1 surgical robot. Strong candidates will demonstrate an aptitude for translating complex technical specs into rigorous costing models that give cross-functional visibility to Strategic Finance leadership and engineering stakeholders. Your work will directly drive commercialization of Neuralink's product line and help arm the company to make ambitious capital investments and product roadmap decisions.

The ideal candidate is dynamic, proactive, and thrives in ambiguity, with a proven ability to translate complex data into actionable insights that accelerate innovation.

Key responsibilities include:

• Hardware Costing & Unit Economics
• BOM Management: Translate engineering changes and tolerances into real-time financial impacts on COGS and gross margins. Maintain the master model on BOM across manufactured devices to support leadership in manufacturing financial planning and unit economic modeling.
• Should-Cost Modeling: Develop and own dynamic "should-cost" models for the N1 implant, R1 surgical robot and adjacent accessories. Regularly update based on engineering innovation cycles and act as source of truth for manufacturing financial planning inputs as well as supplier negotiations.

• Design-to-Cost: Partner with Implant and Robot & Surgery teams during architecture reviews to quantify tradeoffs between performance and cost - arm engineering stakeholders with real-time visibility around cost implications of design decisions and help drive culture of "cost as a design input"

• Strategic Manufacturing & Supply Chain

• Long-term capacity planning: Partnering with our commercial, clinical and manufacturing organizations to maintain long-term demand and capacity plans. Assisting teams with analysis to increase capacity at the highest possible ROI.
• Make vs. Buy: Provide the financial data to decide whether we build critical components in-house or source through external vendors. Partner closely with stakeholders across Strategic Finance, Engineering and Supply Chain.
• Supplier Sourcing: Partner with Strategic Finance and Supply Chain to analyze landed costs, pricing ramps, and the financial impact of lead times and MOQs. Translate into recommendations to engineering teams that drive towards cost targets while accelerating innovation and de-risking supply chain decisions.

• Yield & Efficiency: Track cost-reduction initiatives including scrap reduction, yield improvements in the cleanroom, and at the assembly bench.

• Capital Planning & Execution

• Capex Ownership: Own the tracking models for manufacturing facility capex, including high-precision tooling, robotics, and cleanroom infrastructure improvements.
• ROI Analysis: Build financial models that link facility investments to capacity increases and throughput targets.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree with concentration in one or more of the following fields: engineering, finance, business, economics, or a related field
• 2-4 years of progressive finance experience, including roles in strategic finance, investment banking or private equity
• Technical background in engineering either through education and/or work experience prior to transition to finance
• Deep experience in a specific finance function such as corporate finance or product / engineering finance; some experience across the full spectrum of a company's financial statements: revenue through cash flow
• Hands-on modeling experience, with proficiency in building flawless, streamlined financial models
• Thorough understanding of manufacturing processes, product lifecycle management (PLM), and cost accounting (standard costing, variance analysis)
• Demonstrated experience working collaboratively with engineers and technical teams to align product roadmaps, financial strategies, and operational realities
• Ability to operate with urgency in a fast-paced, innovative environment while managing multiple priorities

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in a high-growth technology company, ideally with a focus on hardware or medical technology and familiarity in capital-intensive scaling (e.g., hardware manufacturing, compute/ semis and/or clinical trials)
• Functional experience in specific roles including capital/operations finance or cost engineering, specifically within hardware, medical devices, aerospace, or semiconductor environments
• Proficiency in financial software and tools (ERP systems, Excel, Google Sheets, other financial planning tools)

What We Offer:

Full-time employees are eligible for the following benefits listed below.

• An opportunity to change the world and work with some of the smartest and most talented experts from different fields
• Growth potential; we rapidly advance team members who have an outsized impact
• Excellent medical, dental, and vision insurance through a PPO plan
• Paid holidays
• Commuter benefits
• Meals provided
• Equity (RSUs) Temporary Employees & Interns excluded
• 401(k) plan Interns initially excluded until they work 1,000 hours
• Parental leave Temporary Employees & Interns excluded
• Flexible time off Temporary Employees & Interns excluded