Tax Engineer at Instead in San Francisco, CA

ABOUT INSTEAD Instead is where tax work gets done. Our AI agent orchestrates the entirety of how work gets done in tax, from preparation and compliance to filing and advisory. It's a fundamentally new way of doing tax work, and it's why top 500 firms, Big Four teams, and enterprise corporate tax departments are choosing Instead. What makes us unique: we hold full government approvals with the IRS, 48 states, and all cities to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065, with 706, 709, 990, 5500, 2290, and PPT coming for tax year 2026. Instead is a full replacement for CCH Axcess, GoSystem, UltraTax, OneSource, CorpTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, and more. No other tax startup will be able to offer these capabilities for years as we are two to three years ahead of everyone else in government approvals. This lets us build product experiences that are simply unmatched in the market. Instead is backed by Conviction, IRIS (the largest tax software provider in the UK), Skylark, Aprio, and many of our partners and customers. Our team includes leaders from Intuit, Gusto, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer, PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG. THE ROLE Instead's Tax Engineers are experienced tax professionals who bring deep domain expertise to customer engagements. You'll work directly with accounting firms from onboarding through full adoption, ensuring they understand how Instead's AI agent fits into their specific workflows, entity types, and filing processes. You're the person who speaks the firm's language, earns their trust, and makes sure the product delivers real value from day one. You'll partner with Account Executives to support complex sales cycles, leading discovery calls and running executive demos. Post-sale, you'll work alongside Engagement Managers to drive adoption, configure the product, run hands-on training, and lead on-site and remote implementations. WHAT YOU'LL DO • Lead high-impact customer discovery with tax firms to understand their preparation, review, advisory, document collection, and peak-season operating constraints • Partner with Account Executives to win the tax and workflow case by translating customer needs into clear use cases, demos, and business outcomes • Lead on-site implementation sessions and remote onboarding calls, configuring Instead for each firm's entity types, jurisdictions, review workflows, and technology stack • Deliver executive-level demos, workshops, and working sessions that show how Instead applies to a firm's actual practice model and return volume • Own priority customer use cases from discovery through pilot and go-live, with clear success metrics and adoption milestones • Serve as the domain expert throughout the customer lifecycle, answering tax-specific questions and ensuring the product handles real-world scenarios correctly • Act as the "Voice of the Tax Professional" internally, feeding customer insights back to Product and Engineering to improve the platform • Build and refine implementation playbooks, training materials, and best practices that scale across hundreds of firm engagements • Stay current on US federal and state tax law changes, IRS filing requirements, and industry trends that impact how firms use Instead WHAT YOU BRING • CPA, EA, or equivalent tax credential (active or previously held) • 3+ years of experience in public accounting, tax preparation, or tax technology • Deep working knowledge of US individual and/or business entity tax returns (1040, 1065, 1120S, 1120, 1041) • Experience working directly with accounting firm partners and staff. You can earn credibility quickly because you've lived the work • Strong presentation and demo skills. You can run a room of skeptical tax professionals and win them over • Willingness to travel for on-site engagements (estimated 30 to 50% travel) • Experience with tax technology (CCH Axcess, GoSystem, OneSource, CorpTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake) is a strong plus WHAT MAKES SOMEONE EXCEPTIONAL • You can sit with a partner, tax manager, or reviewer and quickly earn trust because you understand the work, not just the AI • You can turn a messy customer workflow into a clear pilot plan, adoption framework, and product feedback loop • You know when to customize, when to standardize, and when to tell a customer the product is not ready for a specific workflow yet • You care about measurable outcomes: adoption, time-to-value, implementation quality, and whether the firm can actually run the workflow after the engagement ends • You are intense about quality without becoming slow. Tax work has consequences, and you understand that speed only matters if the result can be trusted COMPENSATION Competitive base, variable compensation, and equity LOCATION Salt Lake Office or San Francisco Office (on-site with travel) Instead is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate candidates based on capability, judgment, ownership, and fit for the role's responsibilities. We welcome candidates who can help us build a category-defining company in tax technology.