Director of Tax and Accounting at Cynch AI in Santa Cruz, CA

Aardvark Tax Advisors is a full-service tax, accounting, and advisory firm serving small businesses and entrepreneurs. We’re the accounting and client services practice of Cynch AI.

We’re growing fast. As the accounting profession faces a growing succession challenge, we’re partnering with retiring practitioners and thoughtfully bringing their clients into Aardvark, preserving the trusted relationships and personal service those clients value.

We use proprietary AI to amplify your expertise while always deferring to your judgment. By shifting routine work to AI, Cynch’s platform gives our accounting and tax teams more time for complex problem-solving, proactive planning, and building client relationships that last.

We’re looking for a Director of Tax and Accounting to serve as a senior leader in our growing practice. Working closely with our Head of Tax, you’ll own complex engagements while leading the people, quality, and operating cadence. That means working across entity types, delivering planning that goes beyond compliance, and developing the people doing the work.

This is a hands-on leadership role. You’ll remain close to clients and complex work while taking meaningful ownership of how the broader practice operates, develops, and scales.

The role is hybrid, based out of our Cupertino, Pleasanton, or Santa Cruz offices, with additional potential work locations in the North Bay.

What Youʼll Do

Client Relationships & Tax Delivery

• Own client relationships on complex tax matters, including planning, compliance, and consulting, and be the person clients call when something is urgent or complicated.
• Play a key leadership role in the integration of new books of business, aligning tax operations, client service models, teams, and best practices to ensure a seamless transition.
• Lead the preparation and review of complex returns for corporations, partnerships, individuals, trusts, and estates across federal, state, and local jurisdictions.
• Deliver tax planning that goes beyond compliance; identify savings, restructure positions, and advise clients on the impact of legislative changes.
• Stay current on legislative changes and preemptively translate them into specific, actionable guidance.
• Ensure every return that leaves the practice meets the standard youʼd put your own name on.
• Provide senior-level oversight across accounting and advisory engagements for small-business clients, ensuring the same standards of accuracy, judgment, and client service exist across the broader practice.
  

Team Leadership

• Lead, mentor, and develop managers and team members. Set expectations, give direct feedback, and hold people accountable.
• Lead performance evaluations that are specific and useful. Know where the team is strong and where it isnʼt, and build the training needed to close those gaps.
• Manage capacity, priorities, and operating cadence across the practice, particularly during periods of peak client demand.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for managers when client, technical, or delivery issues require additional expertise

Practice Development & Quality

• Help shape the direction of the practice while identifying opportunities to expand services with existing clients where the value is real.
• Monitor and manage tax risk for the practice and for clients. Positions taken should be defensible. Full stop.
• When the same issue keeps showing up across returns or clients, fix the entire process.
• Partner with technology, product, and the Head of Tax to translate tax delivery problems into practical platform improvements. You donʼt need to write code; you need to articulate whatʼs broken and what fixed looks like.

Core Qualifications

• Active CPA or EA required.
• 12+ years in public accounting or tax, with substantial hands-on experience serving individuals, entrepreneurs, and small businesses across compliance, planning, and advisory.
• Proven experience managing and developing tax and accounting professionals.
• Strong technical knowledge of federal, state, and local tax regulations, including complex returns and multi-entity planning.
• Direct client relationship experience. Youʼve managed a book of business, juggled competing deadlines, and kept clients informed.
• Proficiency in professional tax software (UltraTax, Axcess Tax, Lacerte, or similar).

What Will Make You Effective

• Brings sound judgment to ambiguous situations and doesn't let details slip.
• Communicates clearly across clients, colleagues, and technical partners without losing anything in translation.
• Comfortable in an environment where not everything is figured out yet.

Preferred

• Masterʼs degree in Taxation, Business Administration, or a related field.
• Track record of growing client relationships and expanding practice areas through business development..

Work Environment

• Hybrid: Santa Cruz, Cupertino, or Pleasanton, CA, North Bay
• Extended hours during peak tax season and as needed to meet client deadlines.
• Occasional travel for client meetings or practice events.
• California Salary Range: $170,000 - $220,000

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• 401k with match
• Basic Life
• LTD