Sr. Associate, Strategic finance - R&D Infra, GPU

Company Description

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, built to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our products help people make powerful connections, discover exciting opportunities, build necessary skills, and gain valuable insights every day. We’re also committed to providing transformational opportunities for our own employees by investing in their growth. We aspire to create a culture that’s built on trust, care, inclusion, and fun – where everyone can succeed.

Join us to transform the way the world works.

Job Description

This role can be based in our Mountain View, CA or San Francisco, CA office. 

At LinkedIn, our approach to flexible work is centered on trust and optimized for culture, connection, clarity, and the evolving needs of our business. The work location of this role is hybrid, meaning it will be performed both from home and from a LinkedIn office on select days, as determined by the business needs of the team. 

LinkedIn’s R&D Strategic Finance team is looking for a strategic thinker and motivated operator who is passionate about helping LinkedIn scale its AI infrastructure to meet the demands of our rapidly evolving business. This is a high-impact role that will help define and drive the strategy, operations, and financial planning behind LinkedIn’s most critical infrastructure investment: GPUs. 

GPUs are the backbone of our most ambitious AI initiatives - they fuel the models that power everything from member experiences to enterprise tools. How and where we choose to invest in GPUs shapes our product roadmap, cost structure, and future as an AI-first company. 

This role sits at the intersection of Finance, Strategy, and Operations in close partnership with Product and Infrastructure Engineering teams. As a Sr. Associate, R&D Infrastructure Strategy, you’ll help manage the cost, performance, and strategic direction of LinkedIn’s GPU investments across cloud and on-prem environments, ensuring we’re making smart, data-driven decisions to support our AI growth . 

Responsibilities: 

• Lead financial planning and strategy for GPU infrastructure: evaluate cloud vs. on-prem tradeoffs, manage forecasts, and build ROI frameworks 
• Build and maintain analytical reporting to track GPU utilization and tie infrastructure use to business outcomes (e.g., revenue, engagement, cost efficiency) 
• Drive operational insights to inform GPU allocation, LLM/model deployment strategy, and overall AI investment prioritization 
• Collaborate cross-functionally to develop and execute datacenter strategy to support GPU needs—including sizing infrastructure, modeling cost/performance tradeoffs, and determining investment timing 
• Build reporting and operational cadences, including executive reporting on infrastructure usage, investment rationale, and strategic implications 
• Act as a connective tissue across technical and non-technical teams, translating complex infrastructure concepts into clear, actionable insights for business 
• Contribute to the culture and values of our small and newly develop R&D Strategic Finance Infrastructure team: including helping lead org and team-wide events and initiatives, building inclusive community, proactively seeking out and providing constructive feedback to colleagues, and seeking out opportunities for career growth and skill development  

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications 

• Bachelor's degree in business, Business Analytics, Finance, or related field AND minimum 3 years of experience in finance, finance accounting, management consulting, investment banking, or related field OR equivalent experience.   

Preferred Qualifications 

• 1+ years of experience in the technology industry, including AI experiences 
• Experience with and/or genuine passion for emerging technologies and strategy, especially AI and infrastructure 
• Strong analytical skills and business judgment; experience in data-driven strategy or operations and decomposing and solving real-world business problems, ideally building/using advanced Excel models. Experience with SQL is a plus. 
• Team-first attitude: Motivated to work collaboratively in a fast-paced, ever-changing environment to help our growing business and how LinkedIn operates. And proven ability to work cross-functionally 
• Problem-solving: Comfortable with data and ambiguity, and able to both delve into the details and engage meaningfully on higher level strategy 
• Communication: Excellent communication skills to distill complex thoughts and strategies into simple, actionable recommendations 

Suggested Skills 

• Communication 
• Cross-Team Collaboration 
• Data Analysis  
• Project & Stakeholder Managemen