Job Description

We're transforming the grocery industry

At Instacart, we invite the world to share love through food because we believe everyone should have access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together. Where others see a simple need for grocery delivery, we see exciting complexity and endless opportunity to serve the varied needs of our community. We work to deliver an essential service that customers rely on to get their groceries and household goods, while also offering safe and flexible earnings opportunities to Instacart Personal Shoppers.

Instacart has become a lifeline for millions of people, and we’re building the team to help push our shopping cart forward. If you’re ready to do the best work of your life, come join our table.

Instacart is a Flex First team

There’s no one-size fits all approach to how we do our best work. Our employees have the flexibility to choose where they do their best work—whether it’s from home, an office, or your favorite coffee shop—while staying connected and building community through regular in-person events. Learn more about our flexible approach to where we work.

Why this role is on the menu

Join our Marketing Strategic Operations team as the Marketing Financial Operations Manager — the connective tissue between Marketing's ambitions and its financial reality. This role owns the full orchestration of Marketing's spend across the total portfolio — from software and production expenses to media — giving leadership a unified, real-time view into how dollars are moving, where risk lives, and where opportunity exists.

This isn't a reporting role. It's a judgment role — one that requires you to synthesize inputs from Finance, Accounting, Procurement, and Marketing leads into a single version of the truth, and to hold that standard even when the inputs are messy or late.

About the Team

Marketing Strategic Operations enables the entire Marketing function by connecting strategy to execution. We own the operating rhythms, investment management infrastructure, and analytical frameworks that allow Marketing leadership to make faster, more confident decisions. This role sits at the center of that work.

What you'll cook up in your first year

• Own the full Marketing spend operating model across the total portfolio — including templates, spend cadences, actuals integration, and leadership reporting.
• Serve as the primary liaison between Marketing and Finance, Accounting, and Procurement — managing the monthly close process, accrual accuracy, and spend-to-plan reconciliation with rigor and speed.
• Maintain a unified, real-time view of spend health across all Marketing leads — surfacing risks, flagging execution gaps, and identifying reallocation opportunities before they become leadership problems.
• Engage directly with budget owners to validate assumptions, pressure-test spend commitments, and ensure line items reflect what teams are actually going to do — not just what they've planned.
• Build and maintain AI-assisted workflows that reduce manual effort in recurring spend processes — actuals tagging, variance reporting, spend updates — and continuously identify new automation opportunities.
• Produce decision-ready outputs for Marketing leadership and cross-functional partners — not just accurate data, but synthesized narratives that make tradeoffs clear.
• Partner with Finance and Procurement to streamline purchasing and approval processes, improve spend governance, and ensure portfolio integrity across all categories.

The secret ingredients we're looking for

Must-have pantry staples (Minimum Qualifications)

• 5+ years of experience in FP&A, marketing operations, or a related strategic operations function.
• Demonstrated experience owning a full spend portfolio end-to-end — not just contributing to one.
• Strong command of financial modeling, variance analysis, and spend accuracy improvement.
• Track record of building or automating recurring financial workflows — with specific examples of manual work eliminated.
• Hands-on experience applying AI tools to financial or operational workflows — not just awareness, but actual implementation.
• Proven ability to manage relationships with Finance, Accounting, Procurement, and marketing stakeholders — including holding partners accountable for inputs and timelines.
• Operates proactively — surfaces risks and blockers before being asked, and drives resolution without requiring escalation.
• High attention to detail with the judgment to know when a number needs a conversation, not just a correction.

Optional garnishes (Preferred Qualifications)

• Specific marketing exposure — familiarity with how marketing spend decisions translate across different spend categories and what drives portfolio-level tradeoffs.
• Proficiency with AI tools and automation platforms applied to financial workflows, namely leveraging Claude to build key agentic workflows and dashboards..
• Experience with financial planning systems, including Pigment.
• Background working in marketing within high-growth technology companies.

#LI-Remote

Instacart provides highly market-competitive compensation and benefits in each location where our employees work. This role is remote and the base pay range for a successful candidate is dependent on their permanent work location. Please review our Flex First remote work policy here.

Offers may vary based on many factors, such as candidate experience and skills required for the role. Additionally, this role is eligible for a new hire equity grant as well as annual refresh grants. Please read more about our benefits offerings here.

For US based candidates, the base pay ranges for a successful candidate are listed below.

CA, NY, CT, NJ

$163,000—$172,250 USD

WA

$157,000—$165,450 USD

OR, DE, ME, MA, MD, NH, RI, VT, DC, PA, VA, CO, TX, IL, HI

$150,000—$158,200 USD

All other states

$136,000—$143,650 USD