Senior FP&A Analyst (Downstream)

Position Summary

The Senior FP&A Analyst is responsible for budgeting, forecasting, and performance analysis across manufacturing operations. This role partners closely with operations, supply chain, sales, and accounting to analyze costs, monitor key performance indicators, and provide the financial visibility leadership needs to plan and grow. The ideal candidate is analytically rigorous, comfortable working with large data sets, and able to translate numbers into clear, actionable recommendations.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the annual budgeting process and periodic reforecasts (monthly/quarterly) for manufacturing operations, working cross-functionally with plant, supply chain, and commercial teams.
• Prepare and analyze monthly financial results, including variance analysis of actuals versus budget, forecast, and prior year, with clear explanations of key drivers.
• Develop and maintain product-level and plant-level cost models, including cost of goods sold (COGS), and margin analysis.
• Conduct pricing analysis to support the sales and commercial team, including cost-plus and margin modeling, customer and product profitability, and evaluation of quotes, price changes, and volume/discount scenarios.
• Track and report on manufacturing KPIs such as unit cost, labor and overhead absorption, scrap/yield, capacity utilization, and inventory turns.
• Partner with operations to identify cost-savings and efficiency opportunities, and quantify the financial impact of continuous-improvement initiatives.
• Build and evaluate business cases for capital expenditures, including ROI, payback, and NPV analysis for equipment, automation, and capacity investments.
• Track, monitor, and forecast project-level capital expenditures against approved budgets, reporting on spend-to-date, commitments, forecast-to-complete, and variances for active capital projects.
• Support monthly and quarterly financial reporting and management dashboards.
• Improve financial models, reporting tools, and processes to increase accuracy, automation, and speed as the organization scales.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field.
• 4+ years of FP&A, corporate finance, or cost accounting experience in a manufacturing or industrial environment.
• Strong understanding of financial statements, budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis.
• Advanced Excel skills, including financial modeling and complex formulas.
• Experience working with ERP systems and extracting data from operational systems.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with strong attention to detail.
• Ability to communicate financial insights clearly to non-financial stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with cost accounting in a manufacturing setting.
• Proficiency with BI and data-visualization tools and FP&A platforms (e.g., Adaptive).
• Exposure to a high-growth and fast-paced environment.

Work Environment:
The work environment will be a mix of a typical office environment, manufacturing floor, and construction site.  

Noise level:

Exposure will vary and include normal office noise, typical laboratory sounds (e.g., ventilation systems, equipment operation), manufacturing floor noise (e.g., machinery, forklifts), and construction site noise depending on project phase and location.

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, skills required of personnel so classified. The reporting relationship may not reflect the most recent changes to the corporate reporting structure.

USA Rare Earth proudly supports Equal Employment Opportunities. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination based on disability, protected veteran status, or any other legally protected status.

If you require assistance with the application process due to a disability, please contact people@usare.com to discuss reasonable accommodations.