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🧪Data Scientist

Senior Financial Analyst

Advanceauto · Raleigh, NC
// classified as
Data Scientist (Modeling, experiments, research.)
posted
1d ago
location
Raleigh, NC
languages
python, sql
tools
excel, oracle, tableau
> stack
pythonsqlexceloracletableau
> description

Job Description

Advance Auto Parts • Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) – Real Estate Finance • Raleigh, NC

Advance Auto Parts is a leading automotive aftermarket parts provider serving professional installers and do-it-yourself customers across a large North American store network. At the center of the business is a practical purpose: helping motorists advance by delivering the right parts, trusted service, and fast answers that help customers get back on the road.

Our culture is anchored in Inspire. Serve. Grow. We inspire our teams, serve our customers, and grow the business by working as one team, leading with purpose, and staying close to the needs of the customer.

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) is a critical partner in that work. The team brings financial discipline, analytical rigor, and sound business judgment to decisions across merchandising, supply chain, store operations, and real estate. For someone who wants to work close to the business, understand the economics of a complex store portfolio, and help leaders make better decisions, this role offers meaningful exposure to a scaled operating environment where strong finance work directly supports customer service, execution, and long-term business performance.

About the Team

Real Estate Finance sits within Corporate FP&A and supports the business through planning, forecasting, underwriting, capital discipline, and performance analysis for the company’s store portfolio. The team partners closely with Real Estate, Construction, Leasing, Lease Accounting, Treasury, and Operations, to support decisions across new stores, relocations, lease actions, capital projects, rent and occupancy, and store-level economics.

Our work helps leaders understand the financial impact of real estate decisions — what the investment costs, what return we expect, what risks we need to manage, and how performance compares to plan after the decision is made. The team is small enough for individual work to have meaningful visibility, and broad enough to build a strong foundation in real estate finance, FP&A, capital planning, and decision support.

About the Role

The Senior Financial Analyst – Real Estate Finance will support financial planning, forecasting, underwriting, and performance analysis for Advance Auto Parts’ store portfolio. This role will partner with Finance, Real Estate, Construction, Leasing, Lease Accounting, and Operations to build and maintain financial models, analyze business drivers, and support decisions across new stores, relocations, lease actions, capital projects, rent and occupancy, and store-level performance.

This is a hands-on FP&A and real estate finance role for someone who wants to work close to the business and build strong technical skills in modeling, forecasting, underwriting, and financial storytelling. The role offers meaningful exposure to store growth, lease economics, capital investment, and portfolio performance, with work that directly supports business decisions.

What you’ll do

Real Estate Underwriting and Decision Support

  • Build and maintain clear, flexible financial models, real estate proformas, and scenario analyses that support new stores, relocations, expansions, lease actions, capital projects, and other real estate decisions.
  • Evaluate opportunities using ROI, IRR, NPV, payback, cash flow, capex, occupancy costs, and operating income; summarize the key drivers and implications.
  • Validate inputs, help evaluate broker, landlord, and developer assumptions before terms are finalized, and identify sensitivities, tradeoffs, and recommended actions.
  • Maintain strong model discipline by using clean structure, clear assumptions, traceable data sources, formula integrity, and tie-out checks to ensure work is accurate, supportable, and ready for review.

Rent, Occupancy, and Lease Forecasting

  • Support the AOP, periodic forecast, and long-range plan for base rent, real estate taxes, and other Real Estate Finance areas; serve as the day-to-day owner for assigned components of the rent and occupancy forecast across the portfolio.
  • Support the ROU asset and lease liability forecast across the portfolio; partner with Lease Accounting to understand ASC 842 impacts and reconcile key model outputs to the general ledger.
  • Track NSO performance against pro forma expectations, including sales, four-wall margin, and ramp; support updates to store-level targets used in the AOP and operating reviews.
  • Analyze actuals versus plan, forecast, and prior year; separate timing variances from structural performance changes, quantify the impact, and explain the key drivers.
  • Support period-end close, recurring business reviews, and leadership updates with clear, accurate, and actionable analysis.

NSO and Portfolio Performance Analytics

  • Partner with Real Estate, Construction, Leasing, Lease Accounting, FP&A, Treasury, and Operations on real estate decisions and financial governance.
  • Analyze lease economics, rent and occupancy costs, CAM, taxes, capital spend, project timing, and store-level financial performance.
  • Support analytics that inform site selection and portfolio decisions, including market-level performance, cannibalization considerations, and standard store versus hub and market hub economics.
  • Support post-investment reviews and performance tracking that improve future underwriting assumptions and decision quality.

Executive Communication and Model Excellence

  • Translate underwriting, forecast, and variance analysis into clear, concise narratives, memos, and presentations for finance and real estate leaders.
  • Help build timely, well-structured analysis that answers leadership questions and supports clear recommendations.
  • Improve financial models, reporting tools, templates, processes, and documentation over time to enhance accuracy, scalability, and consistency.
  • Pull and structure data from real estate and finance systems; build durable models in Excel and support planning tools such as Anaplan or PBCS.
  • Handle sensitive financial, real estate, and strategic information with discretion and professional judgment.

What you’ll bring

  • Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Real Estate, or a related analytical field.
  • Three to five years of experience in FP&A, corporate finance, real estate finance, investment analysis, valuation, consulting, transaction advisory, or a similar analytical finance role.
  • Strong Excel and financial modeling skills, including experience building driver-based forecasts, pro formas, scenario analyses, or investment return analyses.
  • Strong understanding of FP&A fundamentals, including budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and performance reporting.
  • Ability to analyze complex financial data, identify key drivers, and translate findings into clear recommendations.
  • Strong attention to detail, with the discipline to validate data, pressure-test assumptions, and produce accurate work.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to prepare clear materials for finance and business partners.
  • Ability to partner effectively with finance and non-finance stakeholders across functions.
  • Strong ownership, organization, and ability to manage multiple priorities across recurring cycles, projects, and ad hoc requests.
  • High level of professionalism, discretion, and judgment when handling sensitive financial and strategic information.

Preferred

  • Exposure to real estate underwriting, lease economics, occupancy costs, store-level P&Ls, capex, or portfolio analysis.
  • Familiarity with ROI, IRR, NPV, payback, DCF, sensitivity analysis, or other returns-based decision frameworks.
  • Exposure to ASC 842 lease accounting concepts, including ROU assets, lease liabilities, modifications, or remeasurements.
  • Experience translating model output into clear business narratives for finance, real estate, or operating leaders.
  • Experience preparing materials for senior leadership, executive reviews, investment committees, or capital approval forums.
  • Experience with Oracle, PBCS, Anaplan, or similar planning and reporting systems.
  • Experience with CoStar, Lucernex, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Python, Alteryx, or other real estate, data, or automation tools.
  • Experience in retail, multi-unit operations, REIT, real estate private equity, brokerage, transaction advisory, investment banking, corporate development, or consulting.
  • MBA, CFA, CPA, or real estate-related coursework or certification.

How you'll be successful

  • Build models that are clear, accurate, flexible, and easy to review.
  • Understand the business driver behind the number, not just the output.
  • Communicate insights in a way finance and non-finance partners can act on.
  • Bring curiosity, judgment, and discipline to real estate and FP&A questions.
  • Own your work product, manage deadlines, escalate risks early, and continuously improve the tools and processes around you.

Ideal candidate

You are a finance professional who combines strong modeling skills with practical business judgment. You can build the analysis, pressure-test the assumptions, explain the implications, and help leaders understand the decision. You are detail-oriented without losing sight of the broader business question, and you take pride in producing work that is accurate, clear, and ready for review with finance and business leaders. The strongest candidates will bring strong FP&A fundamentals, analytical curiosity, and interest or experience in real estate, capital investment, store economics, or portfolio decision support.

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