This is Cradle

Proteins are the molecular machines of life, used for many therapeutic, diagnostic, chemical, agricultural and food applications. Designing and optimizing proteins takes a lot of expert knowledge and manual effort, through the use of custom computational and biological tools.

Machine learning is revolutionizing this space, by enabling high-fidelity protein models. At Cradle, we offer a software platform for AI-guided discovery and optimization of proteins, so that biologists can design proteins faster and at scale. We are already used by clients across biopharma, biotech, agri-tech, food-tech, and academia.

We're an experienced team of just under 100 people. We've built many successful products before and have enough funding for multiple years of runway. We are distributed across three offices in Amsterdam, Boston, and Zurich, alongside a few remote colleagues.

We offer our employees a very competitive salary, a generous equity stake in the company and a wide range of benefits and career progression opportunities.

Cradle is building the tools that let scientists design better proteins - the ones that will cure diseases and replace the materials we can't keep making. Behind that sits an international group with European and US entities, a modern finance stack, and a finance function that’s still being built. As Cradle’s first Financial Controller, you'll bring the group's accounting in-house from our external accountants and build the machinery around it: the close, the controls, and the automation that keeps a small finance team from becoming a large one.

Responsibilities

• Bring accounting in-house: Take full ownership of the group's accounting from our external partners, and shape how it runs from the ground up.

• Design the core financial processes: Build procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, and record-to-report end to end, with controls that hold up as the company scales.

• Automate what shouldn't be manual: Get everything possible out of our finance tools (i.e. Ramp and Campfire), and keep asking which recurring task shouldn't need a human next quarter.

• Own the numbers across the group: Deliver accurate, timely reporting across multiple entities, currencies, and reporting frameworks.

• Get us audit-ready: Establish the documentation and control trail that makes external review a formality rather than a scramble.

• Support the full finance scope: Work alongside the Ops team on the things a growing company throws at finance - budgeting and forecasting, cash analysis, group tax structuring, and supporting future funding rounds.

Requirements

• 4+ years in accounting or controlling, ideally mixing audit or accounting firm experience with time in-house at a startup or scaleup

• You've owned a month-end close end to end

• A track record of building or improving processes in fast-changing startup environments. You're quick to spot something sub-optimal, design a fix, and see it through.

• Hands-on experience with a traditional ERP or comparable modern finance stack, and confident picking up and optimising new tools.

• Comfort connecting the dots across different operational domains (Finance, People, Legal). You understand how a change in one area ripples into others.

• Familiarity with Dutch, Swiss, and/or US statutory reporting and local filing requirements

• You prioritise well under a lot of moving parts

• A versatile communicator who can document a process clearly enough that someone else can follow it

• Ability to be in the office at least 3 days a week.

Nice-to-haves

• You've been an early finance hire at a scale-up

• Familiarity with any of Ramp, Campfire, or HubSpot

• Experience preparing for a first statutory audit

Our commitment to inclusive hiring

Cradle evaluates all candidates based on merit, regardless of sex, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, or any other aspect of identity. We maintain zero tolerance for discrimination and actively encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

AI disclosure

Cradle uses an applicant tracking system that includes basic AI-assisted features which may generate scores or rankings based on how applications match a job description. These outputs are not used to make or meaningfully influence hiring decisions — all candidates are evaluated through a thorough, human-led review by our recruiting team.

A notice about recruitment scams

Please be aware that scammers are posing as us in order to get your personal details or money. We only communicate via @ email addresses, we only make job offers after having met you in person at our office in Zurich or Amsterdam, and we never ask you to pay for anything during the interview process.