Financial Analyst
The University of California, San Diego
About this position
Position Description
DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW: The Mission of the San Diego Supercomputer Center is to translate innovation into practice. SDSC adopts and partners on innovations in industry and academia in the areas of software, hardware, computational and data sciences, and related areas, and translates them into cyberinfrastructure that solves practical problems across any and all scientific domains and societal endeavors. Cyberinfrastructure refers to an accessible, integrated network of high-performance computing, data, and networking resources and expertise, focused on accelerating scientific inquiry and discovery. With more than 250 employees and $30-50M of revenue a year, SDSC is a global leader in the design, development, and operations of cyberinfrastructure. SDSC supports hundreds of multidisciplinary programs spanning a wide variety of domains, from earth sciences and biology to astrophysics, bioinformatics, and health IT. SDSC presently operates multiple large HPC systems ranging from a 120k x86 CPU core general purpose system to a system explicitly designed for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and a nationally distributed system open for all of academia to integrate with. SDSC offers research data services across the entire vertical stack from universally scalable storage to consulting services on FAIR, Big Data, and AI. SDSC offers a rich set of cloud services both on-premise, in the commercial cloud, and as hybrid services across both. SDSC has three geographic scopes, a national scope supporting cyberinfrastructure for the entire US research and education community, a California scope with a special focus on convergence research that addresses the three dominant threats to CA: Drought, Fire, Earthquakes, and a campus scope focusing on advancing the global impact of SDSC by advancing the research objectives of the UC San Diego faculty, researchers, and students. SDSC impacts researchers at scales from 1,000’s to Millions. SDSC annually trains thousands of researchers in cyberinfrastructure tools and software, and supports thousands of individual researchers via Unix accounts on its large HPC systems. SDSC was a leader developing the Science Gateway concept, and continues to be a global leader in its evolution. SDSC operates multiple major such gateways with user communities ranging from the tens of thousands to the millions. SDSC’s educational programs includes online courses that have been attended by more than a million students. SDSC is committed to democratizing access to cyberinfrastructure across all of its geographic scopes. SDSC strives towards a culture that supports our employees to be their best, achieve their goals, and enjoy their lives, both professionally and personally. The Business Services Division of SDSC provides all the administrative functions for the center, as well as provides certain pooled technical services. The administrative function requires management of all SDSC fiscal resources which come from over 100 different fund sources, preparation and submission of proposals, management of human resources, management of space and facilities, and the administration of large complex recharges or self-supporting activities including Colo, cloud storage, IT Desktop and Systems and Web/DB operations. The Business Services Division also provides technical services from its Web Application, Database and Documentation Development group which offers programming, database administration and documentation services both to SDSC Divisions and to individual PI’s and awards. POSITION OVERVIEW: The Financial Analyst uses skills as a seasoned, experienced professional with a full understanding of University practices, policies, and procedures; resolves a wide range of fiscal issues in creative and practical ways. The incumbent works on problems of diverse scope where analysis of data requires evaluation of identifiable factors, demonstrates excellent judgment in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining solutions and provides expert recommendations relating to business processes pertaining to recharges, internal and external billing, service agreements, and other financial activities. Under the direction of the Financial Manager, the position is responsible for complex budgeting, financial and analytical functions for the department’s non-sponsored financial activities, including but not limited to core funds, self-supporting activities, conferences, service agreements, and reserves. The incumbent assists the Financial Manager in oversight and transactional management of these fund types, including responsibility for tracking actual staff salary and benefits against budget plans to ensure financial viability; providing regular and ad hoc reports to management; special high-level analytical and forecasting projects; developing plans for the fluctuation of balances. They will be a resource to management in providing information and support on a variety of fiscal topics such as budget and staffing issues, disposition of carry forward balances, overall budget management, agency requirements, and department policy. For more information, please visit: https://www.sdsc.edu/ Responsible for recharge rate analyses, providing expert recommendations to leadership for the short- and long-range strategic planning of self-supporting activities. Works with recharge managers on high-dollar capital projects. Submits rate recharge proposals to the campus Costing office for approval. Responsible for billing and collection of SDSC’s service agreements and recharge activity with UCSD, UC, and external customers. Works with recharge managers to ensure that services are billed on a timely basis. Troubleshoots and addresses operational problems within recharges that impede optimal fiscal functions. Reviews, maintains, monitors and audits the department’s agreements and billing records. activity's equipment replacement and differential income accounts. Determines the correct classification of the agreements within the definitions set forth by the campus to ensure that they are being processed by the appropriate campus office. Draft agreements to be in accordance with department, university, and campus policies, as well as federal, state, and local laws, and in compliance with campus or OCGA requirements, as appropriate. Evaluates and determines the need for any amendments or renewals to existing agreements and interacts with management and outside parties to negotiate the new terms for amendments. Meets with and interacts with PIs and management to help draft, negotiate, and advise on all service agreements. Responsible for post-audit review of general and subsidiary ledgers, troubleshooting administrative/programmatic and accounting problems, and monitoring expenses to ensure appropriateness and compliance with regulations. Coordinates with School, VC, and other central offices to ensure the appropriate and timely allocation of resources as well as the recovery of expenses according to commitments. Coordinates and approves purchases. Conducts fiscal closing activities, including cost transfers, budget adjustment journals, transfers of funds, etc. Independently performs complex analytical studies, utilizing external and internal data repositories to create high-level reports, summarizing and interpreting data, providing projections and recommended courses of action to management, involving the analysis of historical data, calculation of various expenses such as salaries and benefits, depreciation, as well as the gathering of budgetary projections from divisional managers. Performs equipment management for the department.
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in related area and / or equivalent experience / training. Thorough knowledge of finance policies, practices, and systems. Knowledge of applicable federal, state, local, sponsor and institutional regulations, policies, and guidelines. Proven experience in short and long term planning of budgets. Experience creating large complex recharge proposals that have industry, federal, state and campus customers. Ability to independently gather required information to organize and perform financial analysis assignments. Demonstrated experience in applying organization and management theories, cost and budget analysis in order to analyze large quantities of financial data, extract pertinent data, compile financial models, analyze and present data effectively. Demonstrated ability to prepare accurate financial reports in various formats. Strong analytical, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, negotiation and organization skills including the ability to interpret complex policies and procedures and apply them to routine as well as unique and complex situations. Proven ability using spreadsheet and database software for complex financial analysis, fiscal management, and financial reports. Skill in analyzing financial and budget data, extracting pertinent data, compiling relevant information in a variety of formats. Strong, demonstrated fiscal/accounting skills. Demonstrated experience with and knowledge of finance, general accounting practices, business management, fund accounting, audit trails, and use of cost-centers. Thorough knowledge and understanding of internal control practices and their impact on protecting University resources. Very strong demonstrated fiscal/accounting skills. Senior level experience with knowledge of finance, general accounting practices, business management, fund accounting, audit trails and use of cost centers. Proven technical skills in fund accounting, cost accounting, and other accounting principles.