Assistant Controller

Job description

# Assistant Controller **Accounting Operations | Financial Close | Controls & Compliance** | | | | --- | --- | | **Location** | Newport Beach / Orange County, California | | **Employment Type** | Full-time | | **Department** | Finance | | **Reports To** | Dan Hejza, VP of Finance / Controller | | **Compensation** | **150,000–200,000 base salary**, plus bonus, equity, and benefits | ## About Tiberius Aerospace Tiberius Aerospace is a cutting-edge aerospace and defense company delivering advanced, mission-critical technologies for government and private-sector customers. We develop high-performance aerospace systems, secure engineering solutions, and complex hardware built for demanding operational environments. Tiberius is scaling quickly and is seeking finance leaders who bring rigor, ownership, and operational discipline to a fast-moving hardware business. Our finance team is a strategic partner to the organization—building the systems, controls, and insight required to support growth while maintaining the standards expected of a high-consequence aerospace and defense company. ## The Role Tiberius Aerospace is seeking an experienced and hands-on **Assistant Controller** to help build, manage, and scale the company’s accounting function. Reporting directly to **Dan Hejza, VP of Finance / Controller**, this role will own critical elements of the monthly and annual close process, general-ledger integrity, financial reporting, internal controls, and day-to-day accounting operations. The Assistant Controller will work closely with leaders across Finance, Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, People, Legal, and Program Management to ensure accurate financial information, disciplined processes, and timely decision support. This is a deliberate succession-track role. The successful candidate will have the technical rigor, operating judgment, and leadership ability to take on increasing ownership of the accounting organization and transition into the **Controller** role within several quarters based on performance. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable working at the detail level—reconciling accounts, reviewing journal entries, and resolving close issues—as they are improving processes, developing accounting policies, supporting audits, building a team, and creating scalable financial infrastructure. ## What You’ll Do ### Accounting Operations & Financial Close - Lead key components of the monthly, quarterly, and annual financial-close process, ensuring accuracy, completeness, and timeliness. - Maintain the integrity of the general ledger, including account reconciliations, journal entries, accruals, prepaids, fixed assets, intercompany activity, and other balance-sheet accounts. - Review journal entries, reconciliations, supporting schedules, and close deliverables prepared by internal team members and external accounting partners. - Prepare and review monthly financial statements, management reporting packages, flux analyses, and supporting schedules. - Drive timely resolution of accounting discrepancies, unusual transactions, balance-sheet issues, and close-related risks. - Establish and maintain close calendars, standard operating procedures, account-ownership structures, and documentation standards. - Support cash-management, banking, treasury, and payment-control activities as needed. ### Financial Reporting, Controls & Compliance - Support the preparation of accurate and timely financial reporting in accordance with U.S. GAAP. - Develop, document, and strengthen accounting policies, internal controls, and finance procedures appropriate for a scaling aerospace and defense organization. - Maintain a strong internal-control environment across accounting processes, including procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, payroll, inventory, fixed assets, expense reporting, and financial close. - Support external audit, tax, lender, diligence, and other compliance requests by preparing schedules, documentation, and technical accounting support. - Assist with the implementation of new accounting standards, policy updates, and technical accounting analyses. - Identify control gaps, operational risks, and process inefficiencies; design practical solutions and drive adoption across the business. - Support compliance with applicable government-contracting, defense-industry, export-control, and record-retention requirements as they affect finance operations. ### Inventory, Cost Accounting & Operational Finance - Partner with Operations, Supply Chain, Manufacturing, and Program Management to ensure accurate accounting for inventory, work in process, standard costs, purchase commitments, and capital assets. - Support the development and maintenance of cost-accounting processes for complex hardware, engineering development, prototype builds, and production programs. - Review inventory reserves, obsolescence, capitalization policies, fixed-asset records, and depreciation schedules. - Help improve visibility into material costs, labor, overhead, manufacturing variances, and program-level financial performance. - Support accounting and reporting for government contracts, customer programs, milestone-based activity, and revenue-recognition considerations as applicable. - Assist in building the processes and controls needed to scale from development programs into repeatable production operations. ### Systems, Process Improvement & Team Leadership - Help optimize the company’s ERP, expense-management, procurement, financial-reporting, and close-management systems. - Drive automation and process improvement across recurring accounting workflows, reporting, reconciliations, and approvals. - Partner with FP&A to ensure actuals, forecasts, budgets, and operating metrics are aligned and reliably reported. - Support, mentor, and develop accounting team members as the function grows. - Serve as a trusted finance partner to functional leaders, explaining financial results, policies, controls, and risks clearly and practically. - Participate in cross-functional projects, systems implementations, financing activities, acquisition diligence, and other strategic initiatives as needed. ## What You’ll Bring - Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field. - **Active CPA license required.** - **8+ years of progressive accounting experience**, including public-accounting experience at a **Big Four firm** in audit, assurance, transaction services, or a related accounting-advisory practice. - Demonstrated experience in a high-growth startup or scaling technology, aerospace, defense, manufacturing, hardware, or other operationally complex environment. - Proven ownership of core accounting operations, including month-end close, financial reporting, general ledger, reconciliations, internal controls, audit readiness, and process improvement. - Experience operating in an environment where processes, systems, and organizational structure are still being built—not simply maintained. - Strong command of U.S. GAAP, financial-statement preparation, accounting-policy development, and balance-sheet management. - Experience with inventory, fixed assets, accruals, cost accounting, or manufacturing accounting. - Demonstrated ability to build, lead, mentor, or materially upgrade an accounting team. - Advanced Excel skills and comfort working within ERP and financial-reporting systems. - Ability to operate effectively in an evolving environment, establish structure where it does not yet exist, and balance urgency with sound financial judgment. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across finance and non-finance teams. - High integrity, sound judgment, discretion, and a strong ownership mentality. - Clear potential to assume the **Controller** role within several quarters based on demonstrated execution, leadership capability, technical-accounting depth, and ability to scale the accounting function. - U.S. Person status, due to access requirements for export-controlled information and facilities. ## Preferred Qualifications - Prior experience as an Assistant Controller, Accounting Manager, Senior Accounting Manager, or Controller within a high-growth or scaling company. - Experience supporting audit readiness, external financial-statement audits, due diligence, financing activity, or board reporting. - Experience with aerospace, defense, government contracting, project accounting, or manufacturing operations. - Familiarity with cost-accounting methods, inventory valuation, standard costing, and manufacturing variance analysis. - Experience implementing or optimizing an ERP system, including NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, or similar platforms. - Experience building accounting policies, procedures, control matrices, and finance-process documentation. - Familiarity with FAR, CAS, DCAA, government-contracting, or defense-finance requirements. - Prior people-management and team-development experience. ## What Success Looks Like Within the first several months, you will establish yourself as a reliable owner of the close process and a trusted partner to **Dan Hejza, VP of Finance / Controller**, and the broader finance organization. The accounting team will have clearer ownership, stronger reconciliations, more disciplined documentation, and a predictable close cadence. You will demonstrate the ability to lead a reliable and increasingly efficient financial close; improve the integrity and timeliness of financial reporting; strengthen accounting policies and controls; and build credibility with functional leaders, auditors, lenders, and senior leadership. Over time, you will help build an accounting function that delivers timely, accurate, audit-ready information; supports operational decision-making; and scales alongside Tiberius’s engineering, manufacturing, and program execution. ## Growth Opportunity This is a deliberate **Controller succession-track** opportunity. The Assistant Controller will work directly with **Dan Hejza, VP of Finance / Controller**, taking on meaningful ownership of the accounting function from the outset. The successful candidate should be prepared to demonstrate the technical rigor, leadership maturity, operational judgment, and cross-functional credibility required to step into the **Controller** role within several quarters. Progression will be based on execution—not tenure—including the ability to lead a reliable close, strengthen controls, build a high-performing accounting team, support audit and reporting requirements, and establish scalable finance infrastructure for Tiberius’s next stage of growth. ## Compensation & Benefits Tiberius Aerospace offers a **150,000–150,000–200,000 base salary**, plus bonus eligibility, equity participation, comprehensive health benefits, and a 401(k). Final compensation will be determined based on experience, technical depth, leadership capability, and the needs of the business. ## Equal Opportunity Employer Tiberius Aerospace is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, ethnicity, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition, genetic information, military or veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Applicants who require a reasonable accommodation during the application process may contact **[kburchstead@tiberius.com](mailto:kburchstead@tiberius.com)**. Tiberius Aerospace participates in E-Verify.