VP of Finance

Job description

About AirGarage AirGarage is on a mission to bring real estate online, starting with parking. We replace broken parking machines, fragmented software, and manual, labor-intensive operations with a unified, data-rich operating system for parking real estate. We handle everything it takes to run and optimize a parking asset: payments, dynamic pricing, enforcement, license plate recognition, analytics, and more. By building all of our technology in-house, we are able to deliver a magical experience for drivers while providing real-time visibility and revenue increases of 20-50% or more for real estate owners. That’s why national real‑estate leaders like Hines and Greystar, as well as technology companies like Meta, partner with AirGarage to optimize their parking facilities. AirGarage uses datapoints like real-time occupancy, local events, weather, driver behavior, competitor pricing, and more to bring true intelligence to real estate owners’ assets for the first time. We’re investing aggressively to make the physical world legible to a digital system: cameras, sensors, and software that generate a firehose of real-time data about the world around us. That data fuels models and algorithms that allow us to optimize performance at each property while giving owners the clarity and control they’ve never had before. Before you can optimize an asset, you need to observe it. Before you can observe it, you need to bring it online. We are starting with the $131 billion US parking real estate market because it is one of the most offline and mismanaged commercial real estate asset types. 26% of the land area in the median American urban core is dedicated to parking. We are backed by top tier investors including Headline Growth, Andreessen Horowitz, Floodgate, Founders Fund, Abstract Ventures, and angel investors who have founded or worked at companies like Uber, Opendoor, Flexport, and more. Want to learn more about AirGarage and the problem we're tackling? Check out these podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU0NkDK51E4 https://youtu.be/_8aM6NQHYiE?si=p5WIujBWUA1sG-b7 THE ROLE 💼 As our first VP of Finance, you’ll be the hands-on builder who turns a solid foundation into a high-leverage finance function. You’ll serve as a thought partner to our founders and leadership team, not a scorekeeper. Your job is to shape decisions, not just model them after they're made. That means working directly with product, operations, sales, and engineering to sharpen how we plan, decide, and execute as we scale. This is not a “present the dashboard once a month” role. You’ll own our forward-looking model, obsess every day over unit economics across hundreds of real-world locations, and work with our in-house accounting team to upgrade our systems from scrappy to scalable (think: QuickBooks → ERP). You’ll also take the wheel on cap table management, vendor negotiations, investor readiness, and the legal/G&A odds-and-ends that keep a growing company running and enable the rest of the leadership team to focus on building and selling our product to customers. This job is for someone who’s done it before (”it” meaning: meaningfully owned finance at a rapidly scaling venture-backed company). You’ll be the cornerstone of our finance org and will shape the processes, systems, and culture that help AirGarage compound, turning messy reality into crisp signal so the rest of the company can move faster with confidence. WHAT YOU WILL DO 📊 - Own the model, not just the math: Maintain and continuously improve a driver-based, forward-looking model that maps to reality. Build scenarios (base/low/high), pressure-test assumptions, and translate “levers” into clear tradeoffs for leadership. - Live in our unit economics: Track and improve margins and P&Ls by location; cohort and segment intelligently (region, seasonality, property type, etc.); surface insights and partner with the Operations team to increase contribution margin and reduce complexity as we scale. - Turn data into decisions: Build lightweight, reliable budget vs. actuals and KPI dashboards (cash, runway, sales productivity, marketing efficiency, portfolio performance) that leaders can use every day, not just once per quarter. - Upgrade our finance stack: Lead our transition from QuickBooks to a scalable ERP, partner with the in-house Accounting team to rationalize the chart of accounts, tighten close processes, and ensure clean books that roll up cleanly to corporate. - Cap table & equity operations: Own Carta hygiene, option grants, refreshes, and board approvals in an accurate, timely, buttoned-up, and market-informed manner. - Investor & board readiness: Keep us “always ready” with consistent metrics definitions, a clean data room, and crisp monthly/quarterly reporting. Make sure the story and the numbers match. - Vendor spend & commercial rigor: Identify large cost buckets, renegotiate where we have leverage, and standardize commercial terms to reduce one-off complexity. Partner with Sales & Operations to hold the line on templates that scale. - Compensation & leveling: Partner with leadership on comp philosophy, leveling frameworks, annual reviews, and headcount planning that align with goals and runway. - Legal/G&A stewardship: Coordinate commercial contract review, insurance matters, and office operations as needed; bring in external counsel efficiently and build toward pragmatic in-house coverage over time. - Capital strategy & banking: Maintain cash forecasts, evaluate debt options, cultivate banking relationships, and plan for audits as we grow. - Create leverage for everyone: Build simple ROI templates and decision frameworks so teams can stack-rank projects, weigh paybacks, and move quickly without sacrificing financial discipline. WHAT YOU NEED 🦚 - Built-from-scratch experience: You’ve been the first or very early finance hire at a high-growth company and have personally implemented systems, closed the books, owned the model, and taken a company through its first audits. - Hands-on operator: You’re comfortable toggling between 10,000-ft strategy and ground-level detail. You’ll roll up your sleeves to fix a mapping in the ERP at 10am and present a board-ready scenario at 2pm. - Modeling + judgment: Strong command of driver-based modeling, scenario analysis, and cohort economics paired with the judgment to simplify and focus on what moves the business. - Systems & process builder: Experience moving from QuickBooks to ERP. You know how to design a chart of accounts, shorten close cycles, and make data trustworthy. - Story + numbers: Clear communicator who can translate complexity into crisp narratives for executives, the board, banks, and investors while keeping the story aligned with the data. - Commercial and vendor acumen: Comfortable reviewing terms, standardizing templates, and leading vendor renegotiations that materially improve unit economics. - People partnership: Experience supporting comp design, leveling, and workforce planning with a pragmatic, operator-friendly approach. - Bias for action: You move fast, measure results, and improve the system every cycle. You know when “80/20 and shipping” beats “perfect and late.” Your mindset is that Finance should never slow the company down and does not exist to make the final decision but rather serves as a supporting function for other leaders in the business to quickly make more informed decisions. - Order maker, not order taker: You don't wait to be asked — you notice the gap, build the model, and bring a recommendation. Finance's agenda is something you set, not something handed to you. - Strongly preferred: Multi-location and or revenue-share or transactional business exposure, hardware or inventory familiarity, prior ownership of legal and G&A functions beyond “pure” finance, and experience preparing for and leading the company’s first audits. Bonus if you have finance experience at a company executing a roll-up or M&A-driven growth strategy. 🚨 WHY THIS ROLE MAY NOT BE FOR YOU 🚨 Please review this section before applying. We are sharing this information up front because we don’t expect this job to be appealing to everybody and we do not want to waste your time if you are not on board with all of the following. Being the Head of Finance at a high growth startup means many different things, but there is one thing above all that it certainly means: critical business metrics and their level of legibility to the rest of the leadership team are ultimately your responsibility to own. This will be a hard job. We work long hours at AirGarage, including nights and weekends, because we love what we do. We are growing fast but our Finance & Accounting team is lean, so every day you will have new challenges and too much on your plate, but you’ll be expected to find a way to deliver anyways. Below are some of the reasons you might not want this job: - You want a big team on day one. This is an 80% IC role at the start. If you prefer directing a large org to doing the work yourself, this won’t feel right. - You expect a perfect playbook. We’re upgrading systems, standardizing terms, and tightening processes. You’ll be writing the playbook while running the plays. - You don’t love complexity. We're a technology company that interacts with the physical world, not a SaaS business with a clean, predictable P&L. Hundreds of locations, seasonality, and revenue-share dynamics mean there's real operational nuance, and that's where the 'potential energy' in the business is locked up waiting for you to release it. - You only want to “analyze.” We need a builder who can implement an ERP, clean up data, stand up dashboards, and close gaps, not just point at them. - You’re uncomfortable owning adjacent G&A. Until we split functions, you’ll help steward legal/insurance/facilities and effectively own the “other” bucket of what goes in to building a business so everyone else on the leadership team can focus on building product and selling to customers. IMPORTANT NOTE 🚨 AirGarage is a remote-first company, but we also value in-person collaboration to strengthen trust and teamwork. Team members should expect ~6 weeks of travel per year for: - 2–3 full company offsites, “Remote Weeks” - Lending a hand to support one new location launch - In-person onboarding as well as supporting other onboarding sessions for new team members The rest of the year, team members can work remotely from wherever (US time zones) they’re most comfortable as long as they are performing well in their role. Attendance at in-person events throughout the year is expected—if you’re not open to traveling ~6 weeks per year for work, our team won't be a good fit for you. THE UPSIDE 📈 - 📈 Equity: Have a stake in the business that you’re helping to build and grow. - 🌴 Work remotely: Live and work wherever you like! We believe in folks working where they are happiest and most productive. We currently hire teammates that are located anywhere within North America. - 🏥 Health insurance: We offer health insurance and currently cover 85% of the cost of medical, dental, and vision plans for the primary employee and 50% of the cost of plans for dependents. - 🍼 Parental Leave: We offer 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave to all parents to bond with a newly born, adopted, or fostered child. The 12 weeks can be taken as a continuous leave or intermittently over the first 18 months of the child's life. - 💻 Home office setup: Get a laptop + additional equipment needed to set you up for success. - ⛺ Time to recharge: We have an unlimited PTO policy with a minimum requirement of 10 days per year. - 🤑 401k: Make financial planning right for you with a 401k retirement savings program. - ✈️ Team Off-sites: ~2 times per year our team comes together for a full week in places like Tahoe, Charleston, San Diego, Park City, and Austin. - 📚 BookGarage: Our team loves to learn and grow together, so join us for our optional recurring book club. - 🪴Room to grow: Our team will be orders of magnitude larger within a few years; as a part of our foundational team, you'll have opportunities to grow with us. - 🏙️ Transform our cities: The opportunity to change the way that the world thinks about real estate use in our cities. - 👐 Work with a diverse team: At AirGarage, we've always been committed to building a thriving team that represents the communities we serve. Our team is currently 40% female and 30%+ from underrepresented communities. Note: Employment with AirGarage is contingent upon successful completion of a background check and employment verification conducted in compliance with applicable laws. Background checks are completed only after a conditional offer of employment has been made. We understand that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' candidate. We're looking for someone passionate, with grit and determination, who is excited to face the challenges of a rapidly growing startup. AirGarage is the type of company where you can grow exponentially, and we encourage you to apply to us even if you don't 100% match the candidate description. AirGarage is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Candidates and employees are always evaluated based on merit, qualifications, and performance. We will never discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status.