Finance Lead

About the role

This is a mission-critical role for an experienced and driven finance professional to help build a robust and scalable organisation. You'll manage our day-to-day financial operations while developing the financial strategy and models that unlock our growth.

What you'll do

• Own the daily financial engine: manage accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, invoices, and payments while mastering cash flow and budgeting.
• Build in AI automations to eliminate manual back-office tasks and relentlessly automate day-to-day operations.
• Maintain documentation to keep the company permanently legally and fiscally compliant, auditable at a moment's notice for funding agencies and investors.
• Own vendor relationships and purchasing processes while proactively identifying business risks and managing the company's capital and risk portfolio.
• Build and maintain complex financial models and run scenario planning for scaling up, including equity/debt structuring and techno-economic analyses.
• Partner with commercial and business development teams to stress-test and evaluate commercial deals against long-term financial strategy.
• Handle financial reporting for the CEO and investors that tells the strategic story behind the numbers.
• Ensure readiness for fundraising: maintain pristine data rooms, manage due diligence, and prepare financial materials for investor discussions.
• Play an active role in grant writing, grant modeling, and compliance reporting to secure non-dilutive funding.

What you'll need

• 5–10 years of relevant working experience, ideally running operational finance in a startup environment or deep tech/hard tech company.
• Strong foundational understanding of corporate finance with exposure to blended finance or project finance structures.
• Elite Excel skills with genuine excitement about leveraging AI tools, APIs, and workflow integrations to eliminate manual tasks.
• Strong grasp of corporate law and compliance frameworks; ability to read contracts, spot red flags, and protect the business.
• High agency mindset—you approach complex roadblocks as puzzles to solve, not obstacles.
• C1 German (essential for local authorities, Finanzamt, and German legal documents) and fluent English.

What they offer

• Mission-critical role defining the next generation of industrial manufacturing.
• Opportunity to unlock strategic value beyond compliance and traditional finance.
• Based in Berlin, one of Europe's leading deep-tech hubs.
• Work with a world-class technical team and ambitious, high-energy colleagues.