Audit Operations Lead

About the Role

You will run the external audit calendar for our SOX 404 program as we scale toward an IPO. That means coordinating with our external auditors across the year, aligning testing windows with control owners, educating our control owners, and keeping requests and deliverables on schedule. You will also own SOX scoping and risk assessment cycles, deficiency tracking, and status reporting, and help roll out our GRC platform so the program runs from one system of record instead of spreadsheets. You will scale the program through AI-enabled workflows that reduce manual effort and speed up our SOX program.

This role reports to the Head of Business Controls and works closely with everyone on the SOX and Internal Audit team. This is an individual contributor role for someone who keeps a complex program on schedule, writes clearly, and makes the program simpler each cycle.

Key responsibilities

• Own the annual SOX audit calendar, including interim and year-end testing windows, walkthrough schedules, and key deliverable dates agreed with external auditors.
• Serve as the day-to-day point of contact for external auditor requests. Triage, route, and track each request to closure, including PBC (provided-by-client) lists and evidence deliveries.
• Coordinate auditor walkthroughs and fieldwork with process owners, control owners, and the SOX Testing team, so each control owner is asked for the same evidence once.
• Track auditor findings, management responses, and deficiency follow-ups, and report status to Internal Audit leadership.
• Prepare control owners and process owners for auditor sessions, and get evidence delivered on time without direct authority over them.
• Lead the annual SOX scoping and risk assessment, including quarterly refreshes, and support the annual Fraud Risk Assessment, so the program has appropriate scope and coverage under COSO.
• Monitor BP and IT SOX testing and report status to leadership and share status with external auditors
• Lead work with the business to improve control documentation, including education of templates and SOX guidance.
• Find optimization and automation opportunities across the SOX lifecycle through the use of AI.
• Support the rollout of the GRC tool for SOX, including control libraries, workflows, evidence requests, and testing templates.
• Define the data and reporting requirements the platform must meet, and test that it produces what the program needs.
• Run the quarterly sub-certification process and report results to leadership
• Own SOX program status reporting: dashboards and metrics for leadership, audit calendar progress, and deficiency and remediation status.
• Own status reporting for the full SOX lifecycle: scoping and risk assessment, testing, deficiencies and remediation, segregation of duties (SOD), SOC 1 report reviews, the fraud risk assessment, and audit calendar progress.

Minimum qualifications

• Big 4 audit firm experience on SOX 404 or ICFR engagements, including managing audit calendars, PBC requests, and fieldwork with external audit teams.
• Experience working directly with external auditor teams on requests, testing schedules, and findings, from the company side.
• Several years of hands-on SOX 404 experience, including scoping, risk assessment, control documentation, testing, and deficiency evaluation.
• Working knowledge of the COSO framework, ICFR, and PCAOB standards.
• Experience developing or maintaining Risk and Control Matrices and process documentation or flowcharts.
• Experience implementing or administering a GRC systems
• Experience reporting program status, metrics, and issues to senior leadership.
• Ability to get control owners to deliver on time without authority over them.
• Clear writing and calm coordination under deadline pressure.
• A Bachelor's degree in a related field or equivalent experience.

Preferred qualifications

• In-house SOX experience at a pre-IPO or newly public company.
• Experience running a fraud risk assessment.
• CPA, CISA, or similar certification.
• Comfort with SQL or data tools for reporting, and experience building lightweight automations, including with Claude.