Finops Engineer (AWS) - SDS

Finops Engineer (Aws)

Santander is evolving from a global high impact brand to a technology-driven organization, and people are at the center of this journey. Together, we are leading a transformation centered on the customer that values disruptive thinking, the courage to challenge the possible, and the ability to innovate.

This is more than a strategic change: it is an opportunity to grow, learn, and make a real impact.

Our mission is to help more people and businesses thrive. We adopt a strong risk culture and expect all our teams to take a proactive and responsible approach to risk management.

Santander Digital Services is the technology and operations team of Santander. We are convinced of the importance of technology aligned with business needs and that our work not only adds value to users, people, and communities, but also fosters individual creativity. Our team of more than 10,000 people in 8 countries (Spain, Portugal, Poland, United Kingdom, United States, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil) develops and implements financial solutions in a wide range of technologies (including blockchain, big data, and angular, among others) in all types of local and cloud platforms.

Santander Digital Services is looking for a FinOps Engineer/FinOps Specialist (AWS) based in Boadilla del Monte Madrid.

We are looking for a senior FinOps Engineer with extensive experience in AWS to take direct responsibility for the economic and operational control of the cloud platform that supports the core-banking of cards. You will be the point of contact between finance, cloud architecture, SRE/Platform, and product teams to ensure visibility, governance, and optimization of cloud spending without compromising service availability or performance.

We are redefining the way we work through innovation, the latest technology, collaboration, and the freedom to explore new ideas.

In this position, your main responsibilities will include:

Governance and Finops Model

• Design, maintain, and operationalize the FinOps governance model (tagging, showback/chargeback, budgets, cost policies).

Monitoring, Reporting, and Dashboards

• Define and maintain cost data pipelines (CUR, Cost Explorer, Billing APIs) and build operational and executive dashboards that provide daily/weekly/monthly visibility.

Optimization and Savings

• Identify optimization opportunities (rightsizing, reserved instances, savings plans, storage tiering, spot instances, eliminate orphan resources) and lead their execution with platform and project teams.

Forecasting and Budgeting

• Prepare monthly and annual forecasts, expense models by product/service, and alerts for deviations from budgets. Collaborate with finance on closing and forecasts.

Integration with Technical Teams

• Work with engineering/SRE to incorporate FinOps practices in CI/CD pipelines, IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation), and automate preventive controls (e.g., guardrails policies).

Policies and Controls

• Define and maintain guardrails (cost policies), compliance reports, and alerts for anomalous spending or activities outside of policy.

Cloud Contract Management

• Manage and advise on AWS purchases/contracts (Savings Plans, RI, support), negotiation, and tracking of third-party consumptions (SaaS).

Kpis and Value Objective

• Establish and report FinOps KPIs: identified/realized savings, % of optimizable cost, forecast accuracy, cost per transaction, cost per environment, % of use of reserves/savings.

What You Will Bring To The Team

Our people are our greatest strength. Each person contributes unique perspectives that make us stronger as a team and as an organization. We value who they are and empower what they bring.

The following requirements represent the essential knowledge, skills, and competencies for this position.

Professional Experience

• Minimum Experience: 4 to 6 years of experience in FinOps, Cloud Cost Management, or Cloud Engineering roles with responsibility for costs (preferably in financial/banking environments).

• Deep AWS: hands-on experience with AWS Billing & Cost Management, Cost Explorer, CUR (Cost and Usage Report), Budgets, Trusted Advisor, Savings Plans, and Reserved Instances. Ability to interpret AWS billing and map it to products/services.

• FinOps Tools: handling of cost and observability tools (e.g., CloudHealth, Cloudability, Spot by NetApp, Apptio, CloudZero, or similar) and experience in data integration.

• Scripting / Data: SQL and at least one scripting language (Python, Bash) to build cost ingestion and transformation pipelines; experience with BI/visualization (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Grafana).

• Infrastructure as Code / DevOps: familiarity with Terraform/CloudFormation and CI/CD pipelines to integrate automatic controls.

• Cross-functional Communication: proven ability to work with finance, CTO/architecture, SREs, and product owners; experience presenting to management committees.

It would also be desirable:

• Specific experience in financial platforms/cards/core banking.

• Certifications: FinOps Foundation Certified Practitioner, AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner/AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate/Professional, or equivalent certifications.

• Experience in optimizing databases and data transfer costs (very important in card platforms with massive traffic).

• Knowledge of regulatory frameworks and compliance affecting financial infrastructures.

Education

• University Degree in one of the following areas (or equivalent) (Mandatory): Computer Engineering and/or Telecommunications Engineering

• Supplementary Training (highly valuable, but not mandatory)

• AWS Certifications (Desirable):

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (minimum recommended) (Desirable)

  • AWS Solutions Architect – Associate (Desirable)

  • AWS Solutions Architect – Professional (ideal for senior) (Desirable)

• FinOps Foundation Certification (Desirable):

  • FinOps Certified Practitioner (Desirable)

  • FinOps Certified Professional (ideal for a senior role) (Desirable)

• Training in:

  • Data Analytics (SQL, BI) (Desirable).

  • Basic Finance Applied to Cloud Models (forecasting, budgets) (Desirable).

  • DevOps / IaC (Terraform, CloudFormation).

Languages

• English C1 or B2 (Mandatory)

• Portuguese B2 (Desirable)

Technical Skills (Hard Skills)

• Advanced experience in AWS Billing, CUR, Cost Explorer, Budgets, Trusted Advisor. (Mandatory)

• FinOps models: showback/chargeback, tagging, KPIs, dashboards, forecasting. (Mandatory)

• Cost optimization