Senior Cost Accountant

Position: Senior Cost Accountant

Location: Greater San Diego Area, CA (On-site / Hybrid cadence; Carmel Mountain area)

Industry: Advanced Precision Component Manufacturing

Ownership Structure: Private Equity-Backed

Reporting Line: Reports directly to the Corporate Controller (with visibility to the CFO)

Target Compensation: $135,000 – $155,000 Base Salary + Target Bonus (est. 7%) + Comprehensive Benefits

Position Overview

We are partnering with an established, standalone contract manufacturer of high-precision micro-components that are engineered for critical applications. Following a private equity carve-out, the company is actively standing up internal financial operations and establishing operational cost discipline across multiple production facilities.

Historically, product costing has been handled primarily by engineering teams. This newly created Senior Cost Accountant role is an opportunity to build a modern manufacturing cost-accounting discipline from the ground up. The hire will partner with Plant Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Finance to translate complex physical shop-floor activity - including intricate bills of materials, yield factors, scrap rates, and high-value raw material flows - into reliable standard costs, margin visibility, and inventory valuation.

This is a roll-up-your-sleeves role suited for an inquisitive, floor-visible cost professional who enjoys engaging directly with manufacturing machines, production supervisors, and operational leadership.

Key Responsibilities

• Standard Cost Architecture & Maintenance: Build, validate, and maintain the standard cost system across production operations. Audit and calibrate bills of materials (BOMs), operational routings, labor run rates, machine hours, and overhead allocation drivers.
• Operational Variance Analysis: Track, analyze, and explain monthly manufacturing variances, including purchase price variance (PPV), material usage, labor efficiency, scrap, rework, and overhead absorption. Partner with plant leadership to isolate root causes and recommend actionable operational improvements.
• Floor Collaboration & Process Discipline: Partner with Engineering, Production, Logistics, and Procurement to establish disciplined processes around engineering change notices (ECNs), work-order closures, scrap logging, and cycle-count accuracy. Spend time directly on the production floor to understand process flows and equipment capacity.
• Inventory & Work-in-Process (WIP) Accounting: Direct month-end inventory reconciliations for raw materials, WIP, finished goods, and in-transit goods across entities. Oversee cycle count programs, physical inventories, slow-moving/obsolete (E&O) reserves, and lower-of-cost-or-market analyses.
• Product & Program Profitability: Deliver clear gross-margin and profitability analyses by product line, site, program, and customer. Support pricing reviews, make-or-buy decisions, yield improvement initiatives, and new product introductions.
• ERP Optimization & Data Remediation: Support the ongoing stabilization, data cleansing, and workflow optimization of an enterprise manufacturing ERP environment, streamlining shop-order tracking and eliminating dependence on external spreadsheets.
• Close & Audit Support: Prepare monthly cost-accounting journal entries, accruals, subledger-to-GL reconciliations, and inventory roll-forwards in compliance with U.S. GAAP.

Requirements

Required Qualifications & Attributes

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field. CMA or CPA is a plus, but hands-on operational manufacturing depth is paramount.
• Experience: 5+ years of progressive cost-accounting experience within a discrete manufacturing, machining, precision component, or industrial environment.
• Core Technical Knowledge: Deep understanding of standard costing systems, BOM construction, operational routings, machine/labor rates, scrap accounting, absorption modeling, and WIP reconciliations.
• ERP Fluency: Practical experience utilizing an integrated manufacturing ERP system (e.g., IFS, SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, Dynamics). Experience assisting with ERP stabilization, data cleanup, or routing configuration is highly valued.
• Analytical Tools: Advanced Microsoft Excel capabilities (pivot tables, complex formulas, data consolidation, margin modeling).
• Working Style: Hands-on, inquisitive, and scrappy. Willing to walk the plant floor, engage directly with engineers and machine operators, and solve root-cause data discrepancies.

Benefits

Excellent salary, benefits, bonuses and work environment.