Remote Financial Controller
This is a full-time, remote Financial Controller role, open to candidates anywhere, with a salary up to $115,000 per year. This sits at the top of the accounting function, not one contributor among several, and it carries real accountability for whether the company's numbers hold up under scrutiny. Whoever takes this role becomes the person the CFO turns to when a number needs to be trusted without a second check.
Responsibilities
- Own the accuracy of every financial report the company produces, since the CEO and board make real decisions based on what this role signs off on
- Run the budgeting process end to end, and hold department heads accountable when actuals drift meaningfully from plan
- Build and maintain internal controls strong enough to catch a problem before it becomes a finding in an external audit
- Set the pace for the team during every close, stepping in personally when the schedule starts slipping rather than waiting to see if it self-corrects
- Coach individual accountants on the team, including the harder conversations when someone's work consistently needs more oversight than it should
- Serve as the primary point of contact for external auditors, walking them through controls and processes rather than leaving that to whoever happens to be free
A junior accountant on the team keeps missing the same reconciliation deadline every month, and it's starting to push the whole close back by a day. The easy move is to just take the work back and do it directly. The harder, better move is figuring out whether it's a skills gap, a workload problem, or something else, and actually fixing the root cause instead of quietly absorbing the extra work indefinitely. A controller who defaults to doing the work themselves every time ends up with a team that never actually improves.
Background this role expects
A four-year degree is required, most often in accounting or finance, and CPA licensure is expected at this level rather than simply preferred. Six years spent actually running the reporting function and the accounting operation day-to-day is the baseline, not six years of adjacent finance work at a distance from the close process itself. Leadership ability matters as much here as the accounting knowledge itself, since this role spends a real share of its time managing people rather than building spreadsheets.
Skills
Required: strong financial reporting ability, deep GAAP knowledge, real budgeting experience, genuine team leadership skill, hands-on internal controls work, and comfort operating inside an ERP system rather than a patchwork of spreadsheets. GAAP knowledge at this level means being able to defend a treatment decision to an external auditor, not just recognize the term on a certification exam.
Nice to have: experience leading a company through its first real audit, prior work migrating between ERP platforms, and any background presenting directly to a board or investors rather than just to internal leadership. None of these are required, but a candidate with real board exposure tends to communicate financial risk more clearly from the start.
How the role is structured
Naukri Mitra is running this search for a company where the controller reports directly to a CFO or the CEO, meaning this role's judgment carries real weight in decisions well beyond the accounting department. The team is fully distributed, and much of the leadership work here happens through written guidance and scheduled one-on-ones rather than by walking the floor and checking in casually. Delegating well without being physically present takes a different kind of discipline than managing a team you can see every day.
Close periods here run on a strict schedule, and this role sets the tone for how the team handles that pressure. A controller who stays calm and organized during a tight deadline tends to keep the whole team steadier than one who visibly panics when a deadline approaches. That composure, more than any technical skill, is often what separates a good controller from a merely competent senior accountant.
Benefits
- Health coverage
- Paid time off
- 401(k) matching
- Performance bonus
- Tuition reimbursement for continued education
These benefits apply to standard full-time eligibility, and the tuition reimbursement, in particular, tends to matter for controllers pursuing something beyond the CPA, such as a specialized certification in internal audit or a graduate program in finance.
The $115,000 ceiling reflects financial controller remote salary expectations for someone carrying real leadership responsibility on top of technical accounting depth, not just a senior individual contributor role with a different title attached.
Applying
A resume that names the size of the team you've led and the scale of the close process you've owned carries more weight here than a general "accounting leadership" line. If you've taken a company through its first serious audit, mention that directly, since it's one of the clearer signals of real controller-level experience. Expect the first conversation to include a real scenario: a close that's running behind due to a specific team problem, and how you'd handle both the immediate fix and the underlying longer-term issue. A second conversation, for candidates who move forward, often involves the CFO or CEO directly rather than just someone from HR.
