--- title: 'Strategic Finance Senior Manager at Taara' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-finance-senior-manager-taara-sunnyvale-bgwdr6gwt6dj' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-26' --- # Strategic Finance Senior Manager at Taara - **Company:** Taara - **Location:** Sunnyvale, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-25 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-26 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/taaraconnect/ec8b78a5-d58f-4a1d-a153-14d171b4137f ## Job description ## About the Team Born at X, Google's Moonshot Factory, Taara is on a mission to connect billions of people who lack abundant and affordable internet by pioneering high-throughput, long-range free-space optical communication (FSOC). Our links use eye-safe lasers propagating between two terminals to transmit high-speed data wirelessly. Lead the charge in bringing our groundbreaking wireless optical communication to the world. Join us to light the way toward bridging the digital divide and illuminating the future. ## About the Role Taara is looking for a Strategic Finance Senior Manager who can work across the entire finance organization of a fast-paced startup and help us build the financial backbone for our business. In this role, you will bridge traditional FP&A with strategic operations, driving business case modeling, unit economics analyses, and long-range financial planning. The right person for this role has a flexible, client-service mentality and can balance careful, long-term, analytical work product with a bias for prompt, proactive action to drive progress. Key attributes for success include: strong finance and accounting fundamentals; sharp critical thinking skills; ability to rapidly produce and iterate custom, high-impact work product for executive consumption; meticulous attention to detail and accuracy; and, the courage to speak up and ask questions with tact and contextual awareness. Initially, this role is scoped to be an individual contributor, but anticipate it will evolve into a team leadership role as the company continues to grow. The position is highly visible and involves collaboration with key internal and external stakeholders. This role reports into the SVP, Head of Finance. ## How you will make 10x impact - Create detailed financial models of various types, including forecasts of revenue streams, expenses, cash flows and component costs. - Partner with various functions of the business to provide financial perspectives and guidance around commercial opportunities, corporate initiatives, and enterprise-wide investments and spending. - Produce recurring and ad-hoc analysis and reporting of performance versus plan, metrics, and KPIs, and seek opportunities to reduce variances to plan. - Play a key role in running and enhancing the company’s FP&A processes, including monthly, quarterly, annual, and long-range planning. - Participate in finance and accounting processes, such as quarterly close and contribute to process improvement. ## What you should have - 8-12 years of progressive experience across FP&A, strategic finance and corporate strategy or business operations, with a proven track record of driving commercial decision-making and long-range planning. - Must have a strong command of GAAP accounting. - Advanced financial and business modeling; must be able to build 3 statement models. - Experience in Investment banking, private equity, or corporate development. - Skilled at analyzing complex topics, visualizing data, and delivering actionable insights. - Innate desire and inclination to learn the details of the business and track record of collaborating with cross-functional teams across the organization. It would be great if you also had these: - Startup experience with hardware products. Job Location & Compensation: - This is a 100% onsite role based in Sunnyvale, CA. The US base salary range for this full-time position is $195,000-$225,000 + bonus + equity + benefits. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process. ## About Taara ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Taara uses invisible beams of light to deliver high-speed, low-latency wireless internet connectivity, acting as a fiber alternative for hard-to-reach areas. - **Entity Type**: Private (spun out from X, Alphabet’s Moonshot Factory in March 2025; backed by Series X Capital, with Alphabet retaining a minority stake) - **Headquarters**: Sunnyvale, California, USA - **Founded**: 2025 (spin-out); predecessor Project Taara began in 2017 - **Founders**: Mahesh Krishnaswamy ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Telecommunications technology / Free-space optical communications - **Target customers**: B2B – mobile operators, wireless ISPs, fiber operators, enterprises, smart city operators, government/emergency response, and innovation partners (satellite operators, photonics companies) - **Mission**: “Bringing high-speed, affordable and abundant connectivity to people everywhere using beams of light.” ## Products & Services - **Taara Lightbridge**: Free-space optical terminal delivering up to 20 Gbps over line-of-sight distances up to 20 km with carrier-grade availability. Used for backhaul, fronthaul, and mesh. - **Taara Lightbridge Pro**: Enhanced version offering “five nines” (99.999%) availability for mission-critical networks. - **Taara Beam**: First product built on Taara's Integrated Photonics Platform, designed for expansion with flexibility in a smaller form factor. - **Integrated Photonics Platform**: Silicon photonics chip that uses light to transmit data through the air, enabling miniaturized terminals and reduced mechanical complexity. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding – undisclosed round led by Series X Capital at spin-out (2025); Alphabet retains minority stake - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Series X Capital, Alphabet (via X Development); strategic partners include T‑Mobile, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Econet Group, Digicomm International - **Growth Signals**: Deployments in over 20 countries across Africa, India, North America, and Southeast Asia; recognized as TIME Best Invention of 2024 and Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award; successful live events connectivity (Coachella, Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta with T‑Mobile) ## Competitive Advantages - **No trenching or spectrum licensing**: Light beams travel through air, avoiding costly fiber deployment and radio spectrum constraints. - **Rapid deployment**: Can be deployed in hours instead of months – ideal for disaster recovery and temporary capacity. - **Silicon photonics platform**: Proprietary chip technology that shrinks hardware and lowers cost, enabling mass scalability. - **Fiber-class performance**: Delivers symmetrical 20 Gbps+ with ultra-low latency, competing directly with fiber in capacity. ## Strategic Focus - **Expand photonics-based connectivity** beyond telecom into data centers, industrial campuses, and satellite communications. - **Scale manufacturing** of its Integrated Photonics Platform to serve global demand. - **Deepen partnerships** with mobile operators, internet service providers, and government entities to close the digital divide. ## Why Work Here - **Innovation pedigree**: Born inside X (Google’s Moonshot Factory) – a culture of tackling world-scale challenges with ambitious technology. - **Mission-driven impact**: Work directly on bringing affordable internet to underserved communities and disaster zones. - **Cutting-edge tech**: Hands-on with advanced photonics, optical engineering, and system-level hardware/software design. - **Growth phase**: Recently spun out as an independent company – opportunity to shape engineering culture and processes from an early stage. - **Hybrid/office**: Based in Sunnyvale, CA; roles range from hardware engineering (optical, mechanical, FPGA) to software (backend, Linux, cloud) and go-to-market (sales, customer success). Per company careers page: open roles include Principal Optical Engineer, Director of Product Management, Senior Backend Software Engineer, etc. - **Perks & culture**: Described as “a new technological era” with a focus on collaboration, rapid iteration, and global impact. ## Sources 1. [taaraconnect.com](https://www.taaraconnect.com/) – Homepage product details 2. [taaraconnect.com/careers](https://www.taaraconnect.com/careers) – Open roles and engineering focus 3. [taaraconnect.com/about](https://www.taaraconnect.com/about) – Leadership, history, milestones 4. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taara_(company)) – Company overview, spin-out, funding, deployments ## Other roles at Taara - [Senior Technical Escalations Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-escalations-engineer-taara-sunnyvale-ed981hzfns48) — Sunnyvale, CA - [UX Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/ux-designer-taara-sunnyvale-yv72apvqqeva) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Senior High-Speed Photonic Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-high-speed-photonic-design-engineer-taara-sunnyvale-0efpz5qbbqra) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Coherent Optical Systems Internship](https://feeny.ai/job/coherent-optical-systems-internship-taara-sunnyvale-f09xrc2ex19m) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Director Business Development & Partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/director-business-development-partnerships-taara-united-states-tmh6fjph8hk3) — United States - [Principal Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-analog-mixed-signal-asic-engineer-taara-sunnyvale-esst4g51npkn) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Director of Optical and Mechanical](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-optical-and-mechanical-taara-sunnyvale-xrh63xxgm2nd) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Growth Marketing Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-specialist-taara-sunnyvale-st1es2a22n73) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Mechanical Design Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/mechanical-design-engineer-taara-sunnyvale-b452mzmcts4a) — Sunnyvale, CA - [Director of Product Management](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-product-management-taara-sunnyvale-c8wndxcamgwn) — Sunnyvale, CA