Throughline

Business and finance

Financial Manager in San Francisco

37 postings read · sampled 2026-10-01 · source ats · 24 employers · largest 14% of it

What employers actually ask for

Credentials named in the 37 postings we read, ranked by how many mentioned each one.

What it costs

Exam and application fees plus typical self-study hours. Almost nobody needs every credential on this list — start with the top line.

Most-asked-for, on its own
$1,500CPA · ~400 hrs
asked for in 5 of 37 postings — 14%
If you earned all 2 of them
$2,790
fees checked 2026-08
700 hrs
700 hours — over a year at 10 hrs/wk

Not in the total: Bachelor's Degree — cost varies by institution; Master's Degree — cost varies by institution.

What the official taxonomy says

O*NET surveys people already doing this job. That describes who got hired over a long window, not what employers are asking for now — where it disagrees with the counts above, the counts are the more current answer.

Education reported by people doing this job
56%reported bachelor’s degree
  • Bachelor’s degree56%
  • Post-baccalaureate certificate21%
  • High school diploma or equivalent14%

Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed. Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.

O*NET 11-3031.00 · pulled 2026-10-01 · percentages are of surveyed workers, each rounded separately, so they need not total 100

This sample is small enough that one posting moves any percentage by more than a couple of points, so we are not calling anything low-signal here. Read the numbers above as a direction, not a measurement.

What it pays

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. A different survey from the postings above, so the two do not share a sample.

$123,280
10th percentile
$216,150
median
$356,070
90th percentile

Every credential above costs $2,790 — about 3 days' pay at the median.

Who was hiring

Employers with at least one matching posting in this sample.

OpenAI · Anthropic · Checkr · Harbinger Motors · Scale AI · SpaceX · Vercel · Verkada · Antora Energy · Decagon · Faire · Intuitive Surgical · Kodiak Robotics · Lucid Motors · MongoDB · Murgado Automotive Group · Notion · Pearce Services · Redwood Materials · Robinhood · Samsara · SBT Global · Sierra · Zoox

The same role elsewhere

Next

  • Roast and Resolve — Now aim your résumé at this target. Free roast, paid rewrite.
  • Synap — Two-minute daily lessons to drill the skills underneath the credential.