Strategic Finance Manager

Why this role is on the menu

Instacart's Strategic Finance team partners across the business to drive disciplined growth and long-term value creation. Within this group, the Retailer pod supports our Retail Partnerships organization as we expand and deepen relationships with grocers and retailers across North America.

In this role you will be the finance lead for retailer deal flow—setting financial strategy, shaping pricing philosophy, and driving portfolio-level decision-making across the full lifecycle of retailer partnerships. You will develop decision frameworks, build robust models, and advise senior leaders through high-stakes negotiations that shape Instacart’s revenue and margin profile. This is an individual contributor role to start, with a clear path to people management as the team grows. This person will report to the Director of Retailer Finance.

The ideal candidate brings deep deal and business development finance experience—ideally from a marketplace, platform, or consumer internet company—and is comfortable operating at the intersection of finance and commercial strategy. You will collaborate closely with Partnerships, Legal, Revenue Operations, Accounting, Product, Deal Desk, Data Science, and Analytics. This is a high-visibility, cross-functional role on a lean team that is ideal for someone who thrives in ambiguity, rolls up their sleeves, and communicates with clarity and conviction. We work together, move quickly, and put facts and transparency on the table to make the best decisions for our customers, shoppers, retailers, brands, and partners.

What you'll cook up in your first year

• Financial modeling standards for retailer partnerships are in place, covering revenue share, incentives, ads, and fulfillment economics, with executive-ready outputs delivered consistently across a high-volume pipeline.
• Instacart's pricing philosophy and deal guardrails are defined and operational, with you serving as the senior finance voice from term sheet through signature with C-suite and VP-level counterparts.
• Partner- and portfolio-level P&Ls and forecasts are live with clear KPIs, enabling reliable performance reviews with Retail Partnerships leadership.
• A scalable deal desk process, pricing architecture, and rate card framework are adopted across the Retailer organization, setting the standard for speed, consistency, and compliance.
• Self-serve dashboards are live and actively used to quantify tradeoffs, surface risks, and accelerate investment decisions.
• A portfolio-level investment evaluation framework is in place, with clear theses, measurement plans, and success criteria enabling confident go/no-go decisions with senior leadership.
• Analysts and managers in the pod are operating at a higher bar—stronger modeling rigor, sharper business judgment, and a culture of ownership that elevates the team's executive storytelling.

The secret ingredients we're looking for

Must-have pantry staples (Minimum Qualifications)

• 8 or more years of recent experience in strategic finance, corporate finance, investment banking, private equity, or management consulting, with significant time spent directly supporting deal flow, business development, or commercial partnerships.
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Economics, Business, Mathematics, or equivalent practical experience.
• Deep, hands-on deal experience: a track record of owning the finance workstream across a high volume of complex commercial agreements end-to-end, from initial scoping and pricing through negotiation, signature, and post-close performance tracking.
• Experience as the senior finance partner in negotiations with C-suite and VP-level executives, both internally and externally, structuring contract terms that balance growth and unit economics across a fast-moving pipeline.
• Advanced financial modeling skills in Excel or Google Sheets, including multi-scenario and sensitivity analyses for complex, multi-year agreements.
• Strong command of accounting fundamentals and unit economics; ability to build, reconcile, and present partner- and portfolio-level P&Ls and cash flow impacts to executive audiences.
• Ability to communicate complex analyses and recommendations with clarity and conviction to senior executives in written and verbal formats.

Optional garnishes (Preferred Qualifications)

• MBA or relevant advanced degree.
• Experience at a marketplace, platform, gig economy, grocery delivery, or consumer internet company with complex, multi-party commercial partnership structures, ideally where the business model depends on signing and retaining external supply- or demand-side partners.
• 2 or more years of direct people management experience, with a track record of developing high-performing analysts and managers.
• Proficiency in SQL and familiarity with BI tools and building AI workflows.
• Experience building and owning pricing frameworks, rate card architecture, and enterprise-scale deal desk processes.
• Familiarity with revenue recognition and partnership accounting considerations for multi-element arrangements.
• Demonstrated success managing a fast-moving pipeline with multiple concurrent deals and cross-functional stakeholders.

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