What are the responsibilities and job description for the Cost Accountant position at Raptor Scientific?
Cost Accountant
📍 Melbourne, Florida (Onsite)
About Us: Founded in 2019, Raptor Scientific is a fast-growing, engineering-driven company supporting the aerospace and defense industry. We design and deliver highly specialized test and measurement solutions that ensure the safety and performance of critical flight systems. From our base on Florida's Space Coast, we partner with leading aerospace programs across commercial and military platforms. Our work is complex, meaningful, and expanding — and we're building a team that wants to grow with it.
The Opportunity To conform to U.S. export control regulations, requirements of this position include being eligible to work with export-controlled products and related data without restriction.
We're not hiring a traditional Cost Accountant. We're hiring someone who understands the manufacturing floor as well as the ledge. Someone who can bring discipline and visibility to manufacturing costs in a company that's scaling quickly. This is a high-visibility role working directly with operations and finance leadership, where your analysis will directly inform how we price, produce, and grow.
What You'll Do
- Own Product and Manufacturing Costs – Maintain accurate cost standards, analyze variances, and ensure inventory and WIP are reflected correctly across the close cycle
- Drive the Close – Own your piece of the monthly and quarterly close process with accuracy and consistency; no handoffs, no dropped balls
- Turn Data into Decisions – Build and deliver cost reports that give operations and leadership a clear picture of margin, efficiency, and where to focus
- Partner with the Floor – Work alongside production, operations, and supply chain to understand cost drivers and surface opportunities to improve
- Improve What's Here – Identify gaps in cost processes and systems and take initiative to fix them; we're still building and there's room to leave a mark
What Makes You a Fit
- Intellectually Curious – You don't just book the variance; you understand why it happened and what to do about it
- Driven – You take ownership of your deliverables and meet the close calendar without being chased
- Self-Motivated – You see what needs to be done in a manufacturing environment and move without waiting for direction
- Strong Communicator – You can translate cost data into plain language for operations leaders who don't think in debits and credits
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance
- 3–5 years of cost accounting experience, with a strong preference for manufacturing environments
- Demonstrated experience with monthly and quarterly close processes
- ERP proficiency required; experience with Plex, Epicor, or similar manufacturing ERP systems strongly preferred
- Solid foundation in standard costing, variance analysis, inventory accounting, and WIP
- CMA or CPA a plus, not a requirement
Why Join Us
- Work at the intersection of precision manufacturing and aerospace
- High visibility with leadership in a company that's still small enough for your work to matter
- A team that values ownership, accountability, and getting things done