---
title: 'Strategic FP&A Manager at Substack'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-fp-a-manager-substack-san-francisco-azg6w11ft34n'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-08'
---

# Strategic FP&A Manager at Substack

- **Company:** Substack
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-11-05
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack/fd7f84c8-fc46-401c-93d0-cc00555fbb18

## Job description

Substack is building a new economic engine for culture, giving the brightest, most interesting, and most creative people on the internet the power of their own publishing platform. Substack empowers independent writers, artists, videographers, podcasters, and creators of all types to create, share, and make a living off their work through subscriptions, while offering them creative freedom, ownership, and a direct connection to their audiences. We are looking for a motivated self-starter to partner with our Head of Strategic FP&A to build a lean AI-native strategic finance and FP&A function. At Substack, you’ll work directly alongside leaders across the company to shape the future of independent publishing and media. You’ll analyze our most pressing business challenges and play a leading role in the company-wide forecasting and budgeting process.

## Responsibilities

- Business Partnering: Provide cross-functional colleagues with analytical frameworks to evaluate key departmental resource allocation decisions. A wide range of business needs will emerge as the company grows; specific analysis may include:
- Paid Marketing: Determine the return on ad spend benchmarks we should set for different marketing channels.
- Creator Partnerships: Set the number of team members to hire in each market as the company scales internationally.
- Company-Wide Budgeting & Forecasting: Help drive Substack’s annual budget cycle and rolling quarterly re-forecasts. Work directly with department heads to build driver-based operating budgets and headcount plans aligned with core business goals.
- Budget vs. Actuals (BvA) & Variance Analysis: Establish spending discipline and monthly BvA cadences across the company. Analyze variance drivers, keep teams on track to meeting their budget targets, and surface proactive risk-mitigation options when expenses or revenues deviate from plan.
- Corporate Financial Model & Long-Range Strategy: Investigate core business drivers to contribute to building, maintaining, and continuously upgrading Substack’s multi-year corporate financial model. Translate high-level strategic goals into granular financial roadmaps.
- AI-Native Finance Architecture: Help architect an AI-native FP&A organization. Leverage automation and modern data workflows to accelerate financial modeling, variance reporting, and scenario planning.

## About You

- Strong Professional Foundation: 4–8 years of total experience, typically beginning at an investment bank, investment firm, or consulting firm, followed by strategic finance or FP&A roles at fast-paced technology-enabled companies.
- AI-Native Mindset: You are eager to adopt the latest AI tools to automate repetitive work and focus on strategic problem-solving.
- Intuitive Understanding of Data Analysis and Financial Modeling: This AI-native mindset should be paired with a strong conceptual grasp of how data is extracted, analyzed, and visualized; you have a foundational understanding of SQL and Python/R, familiarity with visualization tools like Looker/Power BI, and have rigorous training in spreadsheet analysis.
- Experience with any modern FP&A tools (e.g., Adaptive, Aleph, Fintastic, Causal, Cube) is a plus.
- Best Practices Champion: You appreciate the lessons you’ve learned from all the companies you’ve worked at and understand that there are times to reinvent the wheel and times to roll with what already works well.
- High Ownership: High self-confidence, low ego, and high hustle, with the desire to make things better.
- Motivated by Substack’s Mission: Substack is at a key inflection point as a company, operating in an industry experiencing rapid change. It must make key strategic decisions and execute on them effectively to thrive. Identifying with Substack’s mission is critical to your fulfillment and impact in the role.

Substack’s compensation package includes a market-competitive salary, equity for all full-time roles, and exceptional benefits. Our cash compensation salary range for this role is $120,000 - $200,000. Multiple factors, including candidate experience and expertise, determine final offer amounts and may vary from the amounts listed above. Substack is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or transgender status), age, national origin, veteran or disability status. We’re seeking people passionate about enabling independent expression and building a better business model for creators. If you want to see what media, communities, and content can become when unmoored from advertising models, and you have the skills and experience to contribute, we’d love to meet you. Please see our Privacy Notice for details regarding Substack's collection and use of personal information relating to the application and recruitment process by clicking [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UjmY1acxnd27iIde83PxR7XdecR29aIyfkkmEOwAMGY/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.a0wuzmt3mjmm).

## About Substack

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Substack provides a platform for independent writers, podcasters, and creators to publish, build audiences, and earn revenue directly through paid subscriptions.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (with a new office in New York City)
- **Founded**: 2017
- **Founders**: Chris Best (CEO), Jairaj Sethi (CTO), Hamish McKenzie (CWO)

## Core Business
- Primary industry/industries: Media, Publishing, Creator Economy, SaaS
- Target customers: Individual writers, podcasters, video creators, independent publishers, media companies, experts, and educators (B2C and B2B)
- Mission or purpose statement: "To build a new economic engine for culture — empowering writers, creators, and publishers to own their work, own their audience, and earn directly from their ideas."

## Products & Services
- **Publishing Platform**: A full-featured CMS and writing tool designed for longform content, with support for posts, newsletters, scheduling, and media embedding.
- **Substack App**: A mobile and web app that connects readers with creators, featuring discovery tools like recommendations, Notes, trending topics, and leaderboards.
- **Native Podcasting**: Built-in recording studio and live video capabilities, with automatic distribution to Substack, Apple, Spotify, and YouTube, including premium episode options.
- **Payments & Subscription Management**: Handles all billing, subscriber management, and revenue tools (welcome sequences, win-back campaigns, analytics). Creators keep 90% of revenue minus credit card fees.
- **Community Tools**: Subscriber chats, comment threads, and moderation features to turn publications into communities.
- **Substack Defender**: Legal support program providing publishers access to legal fees, advice, and pre-publication review for defamation, trademark, and copyright issues.
- **Network Discovery**: Built-in growth engine where more than half of new subscribers come from within Substack’s network, including recommendations and collaborations.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (last raised $100M in Series C in July 2025)
- **Key Metric**: Over 5 million paid subscriptions across the network; more than 30% of paid subscriptions come from within Substack’s network; tens of millions of posts discovered daily in the app.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, The Chernin Group (TCG); part of Y Combinator’s winter 2018 batch.
- **Growth Signals**: Raised $100M Series C in July 2025; team has grown to over 100 people across the US, Canada, and UK; opened a new New York City office; top writers earn millions annually.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Creator-first economic model**: Writers keep 90% of revenue, own their audience and content, and can leave anytime with no platform fees or contracts.
- **Built-in network effects**: More than half of new subscribers come from within the platform’s discovery tools, reducing the need for creators to build audiences from scratch.
- **All-in-one platform**: Combines publishing, payments, growth tools, analytics, podcasting, video, and community management — no technical expertise required.
- **Legal support**: Substack Defender provides unique legal protection that reduces risk for independent publishers.
- **Brand trust and ecosystem**: A recognized leader in the creator economy with a strong network of high-profile writers and millions of paying subscribers.

## Strategic Focus
- Expanding the platform beyond newsletters into a full "media app" for all creator formats (writing, podcasting, video, live content).
- Growing the network effect through recommendations, Notes, and app-driven discovery to reduce customer acquisition costs for creators.
- Scaling the enterprise offering for media companies and full newsrooms.
- Deepening community features to increase subscriber engagement and retention.
- Building out the New York City office to expand talent and presence on the East Coast.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Small but growing team (100+ people) with a strong mission-driven focus on empowering creators and independent culture. Every employee participates in customer support to build empathy with users.
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Hybrid model; employees can work from San Francisco HQ, the new New York office, or remotely across the US, Canada, and UK.
- **Benefits**: 100% premium coverage for employees and dependents (health care), fully funded HRA plans, generous parental leave, monthly internet/phone stipend, flexible vacation, 12 paid holidays, and a winter office shutdown between Christmas Eve and New Year’s.
- **Engineering Culture**: Pragmatic approach to problem-solving, shipping high-quality products; team works on a platform that directly impacts millions of creators and subscribers.
- **Perks**: Home office customization allowance, internet stipends, and a strong emphasis on work-life balance with flexible time off.

## Sources
1. [substack.com/about](https://substack.com/about)
2. [substack.com/jobs](https://substack.com/jobs)
3. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/substack)
4. [builtin.com/company/substack](https://builtin.com/company/substack)
5. [linkedin.com/company/substack](https://www.linkedin.com/company/substack)

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