Build the Cost System That Drives the Business
Are you an accountant who enjoys digging into the story behind the numbers?
Our client is a growing manufacturing company building out their accounting function and looking for a Cost Accountant who thrives on understanding how money actually moves through projects, inventory, and production. This role goes well beyond standard bookkeeping or transactional accounting. It’s about analyzing costs, building models, and helping the business make better decisions.
You’ll partner closely with program managers and operations teams to understand historical project costs, forecast future spend, and translate complex financial data into insights the business can use.
If you enjoy solving financial puzzles, working directly with operational teams, and building systems that bring clarity to complex cost structures, this role offers a chance to have real impact.
The Opportunity
This position will play a central role in helping the company continue building and refining its cost accounting systems. Initially, much of the focus will be learning how costs flow through projects and inventory, building models that track spending, and improving how financial data is used by project teams.
Over time, this role will become a trusted financial partner to program managers, helping them understand budgets, inventory usage, purchase commitments, and the financial trajectory of projects.
You’ll work closely with a collaborative accounting team and report directly to the Accounting Manager, while partnering frequently with operations and project leadership.
What You’ll Be Doing
In this role, you will:
- Understand how costs move through projects, inventory, and production systems
- Analyze historical cost data and build forecasting models for ongoing and future work
- Partner with program managers to forecast project spending and track budgets against actuals
- Investigate cost drivers and identify relationships within large datasets
- Support project-level financial visibility including inventory usage, open purchase orders, and budget tracking
- Translate original bids into working project budgets and track performance over time
- Perform variance analysis, particularly related to inventory and production costs
- Build clear, repeatable financial models and Excel tools that others can easily follow
- Work within the company’s ERP/MRP system to gather and analyze operational data
- Collaborate across departments to gather inputs, validate assumptions, and improve financial processes
In the first several months, a large portion of your time will focus on learning the cost system and building reliable models. As those systems mature, the role will shift more toward supporting project teams and improving financial visibility across the organization.
What We’re Looking For
Our client is looking for someone who is both analytical and curious someone comfortable working through incomplete information to build thoughtful, well-reasoned forecasts.
Ideal candidates will bring:
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related field preferred (not required for the right experience)
- Experience in cost accounting, project accounting, manufacturing accounting, or similar environments
- Inventory accounting experience, including understanding and investigating variances
- Strong Excel skills, including formulas, pivot tables, lookups, and data manipulation
- Experience working with ERP or MRP systems
- Ability to analyze large datasets and identify financial drivers and relationships
- Comfort collaborating with non-finance teams to gather information and build forecasts
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to build structured, repeatable models
This role could be a great fit for someone coming from manufacturing, aerospace, engineering, or project-based environments, and potentially even someone with construction estimating or project cost analysis experience who has strong financial acumen.
The Team & Leadership Style
The accounting team is collaborative, supportive, and focused on continuous improvement.
The Accounting Manager is known for being approachable, patient, and invested in developing her team. She values open communication and encourages questions. The broader leadership style emphasizes trust and autonomy once someone demonstrates competence and reliability, they’re given significant ownership over their work.
This is a thoughtful, process-oriented environment where people are encouraged to slow down, ask questions, and ensure work is done correctly.
Work Environment
This role is based in Everett and works closely with both accounting and operations teams.
The office is located above the manufacturing shop floor, so there is some background noise typical of a production environment. Team members work primarily onsite and collaborate closely throughout the day.
Typical working hours fall between 7:00–8:00 AM start times, with the team finishing around 4:30 PM.
Why This Role Stands Out
This is a rare opportunity to step into a growing company that is actively building its financial systems and processes.
Rather than inheriting a rigid structure, you’ll have the chance to help shape how the company understands and manages its costs, working directly with leadership and operational teams.
If you enjoy combining financial analysis with real operational insight and want your work to directly influence how projects are run and decisions are made this role offers both challenge and impact.
Posted: 3/6/26
Compensation: $85K-$99K DOE