[Hiring] Finance & Accounting Lead @Tern Travel

Role Description

Tern spent years becoming the place travel advisors do their work. Now we're becoming part of how the industry actually transacts. That's a different kind of company, and it needs a different kind of finance function. This is an important bet, and if we get it right, the path to a genuinely large, successful business is clear. It only works if the books and the processes are right from day one- this is your job. If this sounds like a challenge you want to take on, let's talk.

What You'll Do

• Restructure the P&L so it describes the businesses we actually run, with unit economics per transaction, and own the model that comes out of it.
• Set Tern's revenue recognition policy across all business verticals.
• Oversee the month-end close process.
• Own the burn: the policy, the categorization, and the gap between the P&L expense line and what actually leaves the bank.
• Write the accounting requirements our payment and operations products have to meet, and work with our Finance Product Lead and engineering to get them built.
• Map and close the tax exposure that comes with new business lines.
• Be the accounting SME for Tern internal and our Users.

Qualifications

• Deep accounting expertise: You've owned the technical accounting at a company where the answer wasn't in a playbook.
• Built the function: You've been the first or earliest accounting hire at one or two startups.
• Revenue recognition judgment: You've made a gross-vs-net call under ASC 606.
• Payments and marketplace accounting: You've accounted for money that flows through the company rather than to it.
• Requirements writing: You've told an engineering team what the ledger needs and had it built.
• Close ownership: You can spot a wrong close by looking at it.
• Pace: You operate without a defined process and without waiting for one.

Bonus Points

• Travel tech experience, or any industry where commissions, supplier statements, and trust accounting are normal.
• CPA.
• You've been part of an institutional fundraise and know what diligence does to a set of books.
• You've replaced an outsourced bookkeeping firm and brought the function in house.
• Multi-entity or multi-currency experience.

Benefits

• Be part of a mission-driven team transforming the travel planning space.
• Work with a supportive, curious, and creative team.
• Influence and shape our user success strategy from the ground up.
• Competitive salary, equity, and benefits package.

What We Value @ Tern

• 🌱 We're always leveling up.
• 🧭 We act with optimistic agency.
• 💪 We expect operational excellence.

Operating Principles

• 👂 We deeply understand our users.
• ➕ We embrace the power of and, and not now.
• 📣 We speak up and move forward.
• 🏃 We move fast and sweat the details.
• 🤣 We take the work seriously, but not ourselves.