Senior Accountant, Corporate Accounting

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to harness the power of technology to pursue some of society’s most ambitious goals — from curing or preventing all disease to transforming how students learn.

At CZI, you’ll join a deeply collaborative, mission-driven community where your work helps drive breakthroughs across our flagship nonprofit organizations, Biohub and Learning Commons. Whether enabling scientific breakthroughs via open science and AI-powered biology or strengthening the tools teachers and students rely on every day, your contributions help turn bold ideas into real-world impact.

Our teams operate at the intersection of innovation and scale, building the infrastructure, partnerships, and capabilities that allow scientists, educators, and innovators to tackle some of the most complex challenges of our time — and to do so with urgency, integrity, and optimism.

The Team

The Operations team is a key partner in enabling Biohub’s pioneering work to combine frontier AI with frontier biology to solve disease and Learning Commons’ mission to build AI infrastructure that aligns how students learn with the tools that shape their learning experiences.

Operations includes our Central Tech, Finance, Marketing & Communications, People, and Real Estate / Workplace / Events / Facilities / Security (REWFS) teams. Together, these teams create the systems, programs, and experiences that empower our partners and colleagues across Biohub and Learning Commons to drive impact. 

This work requires strategic and operational rigor, creativity, and deep collaboration. Whether designing world-class employee experiences, safeguarding data and infrastructure, or shaping how we communicate our impact, Operations plays a critical role in helping deliver meaningful change at scale.

The Opportunity

The Finance team ensures the accuracy and completeness of financial information across CZI, Biohub, and Learning Commons. We are building a world-class accounting function and strive for excellence in a complex, fast-paced environment, leveraging systems like Workday and Salesforce, and embracing AI to streamline processes and deliver high-quality reporting to internal and external stakeholders. This is a team of strong performers who take real ownership of their work; we're looking for someone curious and driven, who wants to help the organization achieve its goals rather than simply execute a fixed set of tasks.

As a Senior Accountant, you will report to the Senior Manager, Corporate Accounting. This role covers a broad range of recurring accounting cycles, including grant accounting, payroll, fixed assets, cash management, and shared services, running on weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual cadences simultaneously. It requires someone who is detail-oriented, takes ownership of their work, brings a collaborative mindset, and is genuinely comfortable managing multiple competing priorities and deadlines in parallel. A CPA license (active or inactive) is required.

You will partner closely with teams across CZI and with external stakeholders, including FP&A, Accounting Operations, Payroll, Month-End Close, and Legal, and should have demonstrated experience working effectively across a range of internal and external partners. Familiarity with ERP systems is essential; experience with Workday is a plus.

An ideal background includes experience at a top public accounting firm, followed by month-end close experience in tech, bio-tech, or another high-growth industry. You bring strong knowledge of GAAP, the ability to manage projects independently from start to finish, and a track record of working across a broad range of accounting topics.

We are also looking for someone genuinely excited about the role AI and automation play in modern accounting; this is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of the role, not a side project. You should have hands-on experience using AI tools in a professional context, such as AI-assisted reconciliations, automated journal entry support, or AI-powered analytics, and be ready to help identify and build new automation opportunities as the function scales.

What You'll Do

• Support recurring grant accounting activities end to end, including reviewing grant contracts to determine proper accounting treatment, processing new commitments, coordinating payments, and preparing reconciliations, in partnership with the grants management team
• Prepare new fixed asset additions and capitalization entries on an ongoing basis (roughly weekly), along with monthly fixed asset reconciliations
• Build process documentation and internal controls
• Monitor weekly cash flow to assess bank account sufficiency; execute funding requests and reconcile differences against budget
• Prepare month-end close journals, reconciliations, analytics, and audit support in accordance with US GAAP, with a focus on payroll accruals, T&E accruals, and fixed assets
• Support annual financial statement preparation, shared services calculations, and internal controls testing
• Leverage Workday, Salesforce, and other systems, including AI-powered tools, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of month-end close and reporting processes
• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive accounting workflows using AI or scripting, and partner with IT/BST to implement them; this is an ongoing, significant part of the role, not a one-time project
• Proactively surface and propose process improvements and efficiencies across owned workstreams

What You'll Bring

• 5+ years of relevant accounting experience
• CPA license required (active or inactive)
• Strong knowledge of U.S. GAAP
• Intellectual curiosity and the ability to ask thoughtful, probing questions
• Experience operating in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with competing priorities
• A collaborative approach and experience partnering cross-functionally
• Experience with month-end close activities, detailed review and analysis
• Strong excel skills, ability to prepare complex formulas, pivot tables, etc.
• Familiarity with Workday (a plus)

Compensation

The Redwood City, CA base pay range for a new hire in this role is $106,000 - $146,000. New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range, enabling employee growth in the range over time. Actual placement in range is based on job-related skills and experience, as evaluated throughout the interview process. 

This position may be eligible to participate in our discretionary annual performance bonus program. Bonus eligibility and targets are determined in accordance with our total rewards philosophy and may vary by role.

Better Together

As we grow, we’re excited to strengthen in-person connections and cultivate a collaborative, team-oriented environment. This role is a hybrid position requiring you to be onsite for at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week, with specific in-office days determined by the team’s manager. The exact schedule will be at the hiring manager's discretion and communicated during the interview process.

Benefits for the Whole You 

We’re thankful to have an incredible team behind our work. To honor their commitment, we offer a wide range of benefits to support the people who make all we do possible. 

• Provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice. 
• Funding for select family-forming benefits. 
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving

If you’re interested in a role but your previous experience doesn’t perfectly align with each qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply as you may be the perfect fit for this or another role.

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