As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will be a highly technical individual contributor responsible for designing, building, and optimizing the backend systems that power our low-latency ad platform. You will take the lead in developing scalable microservices and streaming data infrastructure to handle high-throughput workloads with minimal latency. This role requires deep expertise in distributed systems and real-time data processing (ideally in the programmatic advertising domain) to ensure our systems remain highly performant and reliable. You’ll work closely with product managers, data scientists, and other engineering teams to translate business needs into technical solutions and ensure the platform is fast, fault-tolerant, and observable. This role is based in the United States and can be performed remotely, with a preference for candidates who can join us in a hybrid capacity in San Francisco, New York, or Atlanta.

Responsibilities:

• System Architecture & Development: Lead the design and implementation of scalable, high-performance backend services, including microservices and APIs, that can efficiently handle large volumes of requests with low latency. Ensure the architecture accommodates real-time bidding and personalization use cases common in AdTech.
• Streaming Data Infrastructure: Develop and maintain streaming data pipelines and event-driven systems to process and analyze continuous data flows in real time (e.g., using Apache Kafka). Optimize data ingestion and processing for timeliness and accuracy to support downstream analytics and machine-learning models.
• Performance & Reliability: Ensure the backend systems are highly performant, resilient, and stable under heavy load. Implement robust fault-tolerance mechanisms and optimize for low-latency response times in a high-concurrency environment. Leverage observability best practices (comprehensive monitoring, logging, and tracing) to enable engineers to quickly analyze system behavior and take proactive measures to boost performance and reliability.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams – including Product, Data Science, DevOps, and Frontend – to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions. Facilitate effective communication and collaborative problem-solving to deliver new features and improvements that align with our product roadmap.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Provide technical leadership within the engineering team without direct managerial duties. Guide and mentor junior engineers through code reviews, design discussions, and best practice adoption, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Technical Strategy & Innovation: Stay abreast of emerging technologies and industry trends (e.g. new AWS services, streaming frameworks, database technologies) and evaluate their potential benefit to our platform. Contribute to the technical roadmap, making build-vs-buy recommendations and driving innovation to keep our systems ahead of the curve.

Required Qualifications:

• 8+ years of software engineering experience building backend systems, with 3+ years in a senior or lead role (e.g. Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer) in the AdTech or a similar high-volume, low-latency domain.
• Proven track record in designing and building high-throughput, low-latency distributed systems that operate at scale (e.g. handling thousands of requests per second or more).
• Expertise in microservices architecture and distributed system design, including experience decomposing monoliths or building greenfield microservices with well-defined APIs.
• Proficiency in Java and Go for backend development, and experience with Python for scripting, automation, or data processing tasks.
• Hands-on experience with streaming data technologies and event-driven frameworks, such as Apache Kafka (or AWS Kinesis), and possibly stream processing frameworks (Spark Streaming, Flink, or similar, experience with Apache Kafka is highly desired).
• Strong experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and deploying services in a cloud-native environment. Familiarity with AWS components like EC2, S3, Lambda, SNS/SQS, etc., and ability to design cost-effective, performant cloud architectures.
• Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases for high-volume applications. Comfortable with technologies like PostgreSQL/MySQL as well as key-value or wide-column stores (e.g. DynamoDB, Cassandra, Redis) for caching and fast lookups.
• Familiarity with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes) and CI/CD pipelines to build and deploy microservices reliably.
• Deep understanding of system observability and monitoring – experience instrumenting applications and using monitoring/logging tools to ensure visibility into system performance (e.g. Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack or similar).
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills. Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to cross-functional team members and stakeholders. Proven collaboration skills in an agile development environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Domain Expertise: Deep knowledge of the programmatic advertising ecosystem, including how Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs), Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs), ad exchanges, and real-time bidding (RTB) work together. Prior experience building or optimizing components of a DSP or ad server is a strong plus.
• High-Scale Data Processing: Experience designing systems that operate at extreme scale, such as real-time auction systems or high-frequency trading platforms, and optimizing algorithms for latency and throughput (e.g. understanding of auction theory or bidding optimization strategies).
• Data Pipelines & Analytics: Familiarity with big data processing and analytics pipelines (Spark, Hadoop, or columnar data stores) for batch and streaming workloads. Experience with data warehousing or real-time analytics databases (e.g. Druid, ClickHouse) is a plus.
• Advanced Performance Tuning: Demonstrated experience in performance profiling and optimization (e.g. JVM tuning, concurrency, GC optimization, network I/O) in large-scale Java or Go applications.
• Leadership in the Tech Community: A track record of contributing to open-source projects, technical publications, or speaking at industry conferences. Keeping on top of emerging trends and sharing knowledge both inside and outside the organization.
• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (Master’s or Ph.D. a plus), with strong foundations in algorithms and data structures.

Company Profile:

Zeta Global is a NYSE listed data-powered marketing technology company with a heritage of innovation and industry leadership. Founded in 2007 by entrepreneur David A. Steinberg and John Sculley, former CEO of Apple Inc and Pepsi-Cola, the Company combines the industry’s 3rd largest proprietary data set (2.4B+ identities) with Artificial Intelligence to unlock consumer intent, personalize experiences and help our clients drive business growth.

Our technology runs on the Zeta Marketing Platform, which powers ‘end to end’ marketing programs for some of the world’s leading brands. With expertise encompassing all digital marketing channels – Email, Display, Social, Search and Mobile – Zeta orchestrates acquisition and engagement programs that deliver results that are scalable, repeatable and sustainable.

Zeta Global is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, ancestry, color, religion, sex, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, medical condition, disability, veterans status, or any other basis protected by law.

ZETA IN THE NEWS!

https://zetaglobal.com/press/?cat=press-releases 

About Prophecy

The leader in AI-native data preparation and analysis, Prophecy is revolutionizing how the world's top enterprises turn data chaos into reliable insights. We introduce the AI-native data lifecycle (generate, refine, deploy) where our industry leading AI agents and humans work hand-in-hand in visual and document interfaces to analyze, transform and prepare data, to ship trusted insights at enterprise scale.

Don't miss the rocket ship—join Prophecy and build the next data revolution.

Position Summary

This is an amazing opportunity to be an early engineer in a high-growth, high-potential startup starting in Prophecy’s India engineering center. You will be working with a team of dynamic engineers who take pride in solving complex problems.

We're seeking A players to work with A players. We're a high-growth company on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to revolutionize the way data engineering is done. Be a part of it.

The impact you will have

Drive next-generation revolution in Data Engineering

Prophecy's low-code data engineering platform fulfills significant whitespace – it's creating a new category within modern data engineering platforms. Be a part of next-generation tech which is revolutionizing the data engineering space.

Design/Develop/Deliver: End-to-End Ownership

You will design, code, test, and launch a new set of features for Prophecy IDE

Over Achiever

In Prophecy we encourage and give environments to engineers to overachieve their own limits. Set up your own metrics, and improve them iteratively under the guidance of senior expert engineers.

Entrepreneurial skills

Own the features end to end as a founder/ceo from the requirement to delivery. We don’t believe in hierarchy, the number of years of experience. Manage your own career growth. 

What You'll Need

• 5+ years of backend programming experience in solving a deep-tech problem
• Experience with Scala or functional programming
• Knowledge of Spark internals puts you in front of everyone else
• Solid foundation in data structures, algorithms, and software design with strong analytical and debugging skills
• Great problem-solving skills
• Comfort in working in short, agile, iterative development cycles
• Entrepreneurial spirit, priding yourself on getting things done with a high level of quality
• Strong desire to work in a not well-structured, fast-moving startup environment
• You have been a top performer your entire career and have very high standards
• You have a very high sense of ownership and responsibility, with high attention to detail
• B Tech or above degree in CS or equivalent

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Scala or functional programming
• Experience in designing and developing a search subsystem
• If you have worked on AirBnb’s Dataportal, Uber’s Databook, Netflix’s Metacat, Lyft’s Amundsen, Google’s Data Catalog, or LinkedIn’s DataHub, you are a better fit for us. Our metadata system is significantly superior to all of these. Ability to assess new technologies and make pragmatic choices that help guide us toward a long-term vision
• You have shipped software over multiple releases including software where you drove the delivery of the first version
• Ability to assess new technologies and make pragmatic choices that help guide us towards a long-term vision

What You'll Have At Prophecy

• Great culture
• Equity awards for everyone
• Amazing work
• Medical insurance
• Employee's Provident Fund
• Flexible time off
• Manage your own growth and career
• Experience building a transformative product
• High learning opportunity
• End-to-end ownership of your projects

About the role

We're looking for a Product Manager to drive the product strategy for Screen, HackerRank's core hiring platform. This is a high-impact role where you'll shape how companies evaluate technical talent at scale, working at the cutting edge of AI-powered assessment.

You'll own the future of candidate evaluation—defining how we leverage AI to assess technical skills, problem-solving ability, and collaboration in ways that are both innovative and trustworthy. This is cutting-edge AI evaluation work that's defining new standards for the industry.

The platform operates at significant scale and carries a meaningful technical legacy, serving customers of various sizes, shapes, and needs—from startups running a handful of interviews to enterprises processing thousands of assessments. This isn't about greenfield product work; it's about making sophisticated decisions in a constrained environment and delivering measurable impact.

The role comes with high visibility across the organization, including direct exposure to our CEO, and requires close collaboration with platform teams working on integrity, IDE infrastructure, and AI capabilities.

What you'll do

• Own the product strategy and roadmap for Screen, making critical decisions about how we evolve our core evaluation platform while balancing innovation with platform stability
• Drive AI-first evaluation capabilities, defining what signals matter, how AI can surface insights that human reviewers miss, and how to make evaluation both more effective and more fair
• Navigate technical complexity at scale, working deeply with a team of X engineers (including X staff engineers) and an Engineering Manager to balance technical constraints with user needs
• Balance competing needs across multiple personas—recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates—designing solutions that work across their often conflicting requirements
• Guide customers through platform evolution, spending time understanding their hiring challenges, managing migrations to new experiences, and ensuring we solve real problems
• Collaborate across teams and time zones, working with multiple product and platform teams, and often serving as the bridge between technical complexity and customer value
• Lead with visibility and impact, working directly with senior leadership and driving cross-functional initiatives that shape the future of technical hiring

Who you are

• You've built B2B SaaS products at scale where you balanced competing needs across different user personas and made tradeoffs that worked for multiple stakeholders
• You're comfortable with complex, legacy systems and don't need every problem to be new or sexy—you can get excited about intricate technical challenges and the hard work of improving something that already exists at scale
• You understand the complexity of serving diverse customers—from small teams to large enterprises—and can design solutions that flex across this diversity rather than forcing one-size-fits-all approaches
• You have strong judgment under pressure and can go deep technically when needed, build empathy across different personas, and synthesize complex constraints into clear decisions
• You care deeply about customers and see direct customer engagement not as a chore but as essential input for building the right thing

Even better if you have

• Experience working with legacy systems and driving incremental transformation in constrained environments
• Background in assessment, evaluation, or EdTech products
• Experience with AI/ML product development or integrating AI capabilities into existing platforms
• Track record of managing complex platform migrations while maintaining customer satisfaction

You wil thrive in this role if you

• You're energized by complexity, not overwhelmed by it. The challenge of navigating a legacy platform serving diverse customers excites you rather than frustrates you.
• You're comfortable working globally. This role requires collaboration across multiple time zones, including occasional meetings outside standard hours, and you see this as an opportunity rather than a burden.
• You want high visibility and impact. You're ready to work with senior leadership, including our CEO, and drive decisions that shape how companies around the world hire technical talent.
• You're passionate about the cutting edge of AI evaluation work. You want to be at the forefront of defining how AI changes candidate assessment and you're excited to push boundaries while maintaining trust and fairness.
• You balance deep technical engagement with customer empathy. You can dive into technical constraints with staff engineers one hour and guide a customer through a migration the next, finding energy in both.

About Prophecy 

The leader in AI-native data preparation and analysis, Prophecy is revolutionizing how the world’s top enterprises turn data chaos into reliable insights. We introduce the AI-native data lifecycle (generate, refine, deploy) where our industry leading AI agents and humans work hand-in-hand in visual and document interfaces to analyze, transform and prepare data, to ship trusted insights at enterprise scale. To learn more, visit us on LinkedIn

Position Summary

This is an amazing opportunity to be an early engineer in a high-growth, high-potential startup starting in Prophecy’s India engineering center. You will be working with a team of dynamic engineers who take pride in solving complex problems.
We're seeking A players to work with A players. We're a high-growth company on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to revolutionise the way data engineering is done. Be a part of it.

The impact you will have

Drive next-generation revolution in Data Engineering
Prophecy's low-code data engineering platform fulfils significant whitespace – it's creating a new category within modern data engineering platforms. Be a part of next-generation tech which is revolutionizing the data engineering space.

Over Achiever
In Prophecy we encourage and give environments to engineers to overachieve their own limits. Set up your own metrics, and improve them iteratively under the guidance of senior expert engineers.

Entrepreneurial skills
Own the features end to end as a Founder/CEO from the requirement to delivery. We don’t believe in hierarchy, the number of years of experience. Manage your own career growth. 

What You'll Need

• 6-10 years of professional testing experience
• Experience in testing both frontend and backend in a scalable micro-services architecture.
• Working closely with dev teams on any new features/enhancements/fixes and testing them thoroughly.
• Prioritizations of cross-team testing initiatives & lead those.
• Experience in setting up CI/CD.
• Solid foundation in data structures, algorithms, and software design with strong analytical and debugging skills
• Great problem-solving skills
• Comfort in working in short, agile, iterative engineering cycles
• Entrepreneurial spirit, priding yourself on getting things done with a high level of quality
• Strong desire to work in a not well-structured, fast-moving startup environment
• B Tech or above degree in CS or equivalent

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with Micro-services architecture
• Strong problem-solving, interpersonal, and organizational skills
• Good understanding of Manual & Automation testing principles.
• Experience working with UI/Backend/Performance Testing.
• Experience in test planning, test design, test strategy, and test execution.
• Experience with test tools like Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Pytest, RestAssured, TestNG, Junit, Jmeter, Gatling or similar frameworks.
• Experience in setting up test Infra for Functional and Non-Functional testing.
• Experience working with Agile process.
• Experience working with any programming language.
• You write neat, precise, and high-quality automation at a good pace.

What You'll Have At Prophecy

• Great company culture.
• Competitive compensation.
• Fair and Open Equity awards for everyone.
• Amazing work.
• Private medical insurance.
• Manage your own growth and career.
• Experience building a transformative product.
• High learning opportunity.
• End-to-end ownership of your project.

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Prophecy is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status.

Role
We've been around for 9 years and have real customers, real revenue, and real scale processing 300+ billion rows daily (and growing) across thousands of active pipelines. But we operate with the intensity of a seed-stage company. Our product-market fit is evolving rapidly as AI reshapes the data integration landscape. We're building a new generation of intelligent, context-aware connectors that changes how the industry thinks about data movement.

This role is for builders who want ownership. You will write code every day. You will debug production issues when they happen. You will own entire systems end-to-end from design to deploy to on-call. If you want to build something that matters with a small, focused team, we are a good fit.

Responsibilities
Build & Ship (60%+ of your time)

• Design and implement core connector framework features—schema evolution, intelligent pagination, rate limiting, circuit breaking—and ship them yourself.
• Own the full lifecycle of the Connector SDK: build it, document it, dogfood it, iterate on it based on feedback from internal teams and partners.
• Debug the hard stuff. Trace failures across Kafka clusters, distributed runtimes, and flaky third-party APIs. Fix them, then build the guardrails so they don't recur.
• Handle "dirty" real-world data. Build self-recovery mechanisms, automated retries, and intelligent error handling that keeps pipelines running without human intervention.

Architect & Evolve (25%)

• Define the technical direction for the connector framework. Solving the N+1 integration problem makes adding the 1,000th connector as easy as the 10th.
• Design for multi-tenancy, high concurrency, and low latency from day one. Our platform processes billions of rows; your architecture decisions have immediate, measurable impact.
• Evaluate and drive technology choices where to use Java/Kafka, where Rust or alternative runtimes make more sense, and how to reduce infrastructure costs without sacrificing reliability.

Lead & Multiply (15%)

• Raise the bar through code reviews, design sessions, and pairing. We're a small team; your standards become the team's standards.
• Work directly with Product and the CTO to translate customer needs and market shifts (GenAI data ingestion, real-time CDC, agentic workflows) into technical plans.
• Document what you build. We don't separate building from knowledge sharing RFCs, runbooks, and SDK docs are part of the job, not an afterthought.

Qualifications
Must-Haves

• 8-15+ years of software engineering, with significant time spent building platforms, frameworks, or SDKs—not just end-user applications.
• Expert-level Java/Kotlin/Scala. You understand JVM memory management, concurrency models, and non-blocking I/O at a level where you can diagnose a thread starvation issue from a heap dump.
• Deep experience with distributed systems in production: Kafka, Spark, Flink, or similar. You've operated these systems, not just used them. Bonus points for building something of your own.
• Comfort with the Modern Data Stack: Snowflake, Databricks, and the alphabet soup of protocols (gRPC, GraphQL, Webhooks, CDC).
• Startup mindset. You thrive in ambiguity. You're comfortable defining scope on the fly and shipping before the full picture is clear.
• You've owned production systems and learned the hard way what good operational discipline looks like.
• Global Collaboration Window: Ability to overlap with morning PST (Pacific Standard Time) working hours for syncs, design reviews, and collaboration with our US-based leadership and engineering teams.

Nice-to-Haves

• Contributions to open-source data projects (Airbyte, Flink, Debezium, Arrow).
• Experience at an iPaaS or ELT company (MuleSoft, Fivetran, Informatica, Airbyte).
• Deep Kubernetes / cloud-native experience. We run on K8s and are migrating to Strimzi for Kafka.
• Security architecture chops: OAuth 2.0, mTLS, encrypted credential management at scale.

Why This Might Be Worth It

• Impact at scale from day one. Your code processes billions of rows for companies like DoorDash and LinkedIn.
• The AI wave is real for us. We're not bolting AI onto a legacy product. Intelligent connectors, context-aware data movement, and agentic workflows are the core of what we're building next.
• Small team, big problems. You'll have direct access to the CTO, real influence over product direction, and the autonomy to make significant technical bets.
• Recognized platform with startup energy. The credibility of enterprise validation with the speed and ownership of an early-stage company.

Location - Bengaluru
Workplace type - Hybrid

About Instead

Instead is a tax platform designed to help taxpayers and tax professionals collaborate to save money on taxes. As the first company in decades to receive IRS approvals to E-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065 — we're re-inventing a complex category. Founded in 2023, Instead combines LLMs with tax law to make tax management a continuous, proactive process rather than a dreaded annual deadline.

Instead's investors include Sarah Guo from Conviction (conviction.com), IRIS (irisglobal.com) the largest tax software provider in the UK and many of our partners and customers who believe in our mission and vision. The Instead team comprises talented leaders from leading tax, financial services and fintech companies — Gusto, Intuit, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer — as well as top tax & accounting firms such as PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.

Instead was a 2024 Innovation Award Finalist in CPA Practice Advisor. Instead's CEO, Andrew Argue, is a CPA and has been named Top 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Profession twice - Ones To Watch and CPA Practice Advisors 20 under 40.

About the role

We're seeking a detail-oriented Senior Staff Accountant to support our financial operations as we continue to scale our tax technology business. You'll work closely with our VP of Accounting to handle daily bookkeeping, payroll processing, and financial reporting while supporting critical processes from sales operations to year-end tax preparation. This role is essential for maintaining accurate financial records, ensuring timely reporting, and building scalable financial processes that support our growing Instead platform and global team operations.

What you'll do

• Perform and review daily bookkeeping activities and account reconciliations
• Run weekly payroll processing and provide additional support with sales commission calculation processes
• Process travel and expense (T&E) reimbursements for team members
• Monitor accounts receivable on a daily basis and follow up with past due accounts
• Assist with finance systems to ensure accurate and efficient financial reporting
• Provide operational support for processing new sales transactions
• Assist in supporting our year-end tax process with our VP of Accounting and third-party tax attorneys
• Support various ad hoc projects including research, data collection, analysis, and coordination to ensure timely project completion
• Partner with our VP of Accounting to build and refine a repeatable monthly financial close process

What you'll need

• 2+ years of bookkeeping experience required
• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Tax preferred
• Advanced Google Suite skills (Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.)
• Technical competence in bookkeeping systems and ability to build and read financial metric reports
• Strong learning abilities and tech-savvy approach to data tools that maximize operational efficiency
• Detail-oriented and highly organized with strong attention to accuracy
• High level of integrity when handling confidential information including payroll and company financials
• Ability to work independently and manage multiple priorities effectively

Nice to have

• 2+ years of experience working in a fast-paced, innovative environment
• Experience with Salesforce billing, CPQ, and Xero accounting software
• Experience supporting year-end tax processes and working with external tax professionals
• Background in technology or SaaS companies
• Experience with accounts receivable management and collections
• Knowledge of commission calculation processes and sales operations

Why join us

• Work on a cutting-edge tax tech platform that's transforming the industry
• Be part of a collaborative, mission-driven team
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Growth opportunities in finance, accounting, and operations
• Opportunity to build scalable financial processes for a rapidly growing company
• Work with innovative technology and support meaningful business growth

Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/D/V

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

We trust our team with sensitive information, so all candidates who receive and accept employment offers must complete a background check before joining us.

About Instead

Instead is a tax platform designed to help taxpayers and tax professionals collaborate to save money on taxes. As the first company in decades to receive IRS approvals to E-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065 — we're re-inventing a complex category. Founded in 2023, Instead combines LLMs with tax law to make tax management a continuous, proactive process rather than a dreaded annual deadline.

Instead's investors include Sarah Guo from Conviction (conviction.com), IRIS (irisglobal.com) the largest tax software provider in the UK and many of our partners and customers who believe in our mission and vision. The Instead team comprises talented leaders from leading tax, financial services and fintech companies — Gusto, Intuit, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer — as well as top tax & accounting firms such as PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.

Instead was a 2024 Innovation Award Finalist in CPA Practice Advisor. Instead's CEO, Andrew Argue, is a CPA and has been named Top 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Profession twice - Ones To Watch and CPA Practice Advisors 20 under 40.

About the role

We're seeking a motivated Tax Staff member to support our team in helping clients identify tax savings opportunities through strategic tax planning and implementation. In this client-facing role, you'll work year-round with individuals and businesses to identify tax strategies, guide implementation, and ensure seamless execution from planning through filing. You'll learn to use Instead.com and collaborate with our US and India team alongside our US-based tax & accounting firm partners to deliver comprehensive tax advisory services that go beyond traditional compliance work.

What you'll do

• Support clients in identifying tax savings opportunities and assist with Instead.com implementation of tax strategies throughout the advisory process
• Prepare and federal and multi-state tax returns for 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065 depending on your expertise, background and experience
• Assist with tax planning engagements and perform research on relevant tax issues
• Work closely with managers and partners on client matters while building relationships with clients
• Support quarterly estimates preparation and tax return filing using Instead software

What you'll need

• 1–3 years of public accounting experience with exposure to tax compliance
• Proficient in preparing returns for (some not all) 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065 
• Strong attention to detail and organizational skills
• Comfortable working collaboratively in a team environment
• Eagerness to learn and grow in tax advisory services
• Good communication skills for client interactions

Nice to have

• CPA license active or pursuing
• EA (Enrolled Agent) license active or pursuing
• Experience with tax planning and advisory services beyond compliance
• Experience working with US-based accounting and tax firms
• Knowledge of multi-state tax compliance requirements
• Experience with complex tax research and memo writing

Why join us

• Work on a cutting-edge tax tech platform that's transforming the industry
• Be part of a collaborative, mission-driven team
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Gain hands-on exposure to complex tax issues across diverse industries
• Work in a supportive environment with opportunities for mentorship and upward mobility
• Opportunity to help taxpayers find tax savings through tax advisory services, going beyond compliance
• Opportunity to build lasting client relationships and make a meaningful impact on their financial outcomes
• Working with Instead, the first product in decades to receive IRS approval to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065.

Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/D/V

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

We trust our team with sensitive information, so all candidates who receive and accept employment offers must complete a background check before joining us.

About Instead

Instead is a tax platform designed to help taxpayers and tax professionals collaborate to save money on taxes. As the first company in decades to receive IRS approvals to E-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065 — we're re-inventing a complex category. Founded in 2023, Instead combines LLMs with tax law to make tax management a continuous, proactive process rather than a dreaded annual deadline.

Instead's investors include Sarah Guo from Conviction (conviction.com), IRIS (irisglobal.com) the largest tax software provider in the UK and many of our partners and customers who believe in our mission and vision. The Instead team comprises talented leaders from leading tax, financial services and fintech companies — Gusto, Intuit, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer — as well as top tax & accounting firms such as PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.

Instead was a 2024 Innovation Award Finalist in CPA Practice Advisor. Instead's CEO, Andrew Argue, is a CPA and has been named Top 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Profession twice - Ones To Watch and CPA Practice Advisors 20 under 40.

About this role

We’re looking for a motivated Tax Senior to join our Bangalore & Hyderabad offices and play a key role in delivering strategic tax advisory services. In this client-facing role, you’ll support individuals and businesses throughout the entire tax lifecycle—from kickoff calls, through tax planning and strategy implementation, to estimated payments and tax return filing.

You’ll gain hands-on experience working directly with clients while collaborating closely with managers, partners, and our teams in the U.S. and India. This is a chance to go beyond traditional compliance work and help clients achieve real financial results through proactive tax strategies.

What you'll Do

• Participate in customer kickoff calls and help guide them through the tax advisory process.
• Prepare tax plans and support strategy implementation for individuals and businesses.
• Assist with calculating and preparing estimated tax payments utilizing Instead software.
• Prepare federal and multi-state tax returns (1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065 depending on your expertise).
• Research tax issues and draft clear, practical guidance for managers and clients.
• Collaborate with tax managers, partners, and cross-border teams to ensure a seamless client experience.
• Provide support and mentorship to junior staff and admins.

What you'll need

• 2–4 years of public accounting or tax experience, with strong exposure to compliance.
• Proficiency in preparing returns for some or all of: 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065.
• Strong organizational and problem-solving skills.
• Comfortable working directly with clients and communicating complex topics in simple terms
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.

Nice to have

• CPA license active or in progress, or EA credential.
• Experience with tax planning or advisory services beyond compliance.
• Exposure to multi-state compliance requirements.
• Experience researching complex tax issues and preparing memos.

Why join us

• Work on a cutting-edge tax tech platform that's transforming the industry
• Be part of a collaborative, mission-driven team
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Gain hands-on exposure to complex tax issues across diverse industries
• Work in a supportive environment with opportunities for mentorship and upward mobility
• Opportunity to help taxpayers find tax savings through tax advisory services, going beyond compliance
• Opportunity to build lasting client relationships and make a meaningful impact on their financial outcomes
• Working with Instead, the first product in decades to receive IRS approval to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065.

Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/D/V

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

We trust our team with sensitive information, so all candidates who receive and accept employment offers must complete a background check before joining us. 

About Instead

Instead is a tax platform designed to help taxpayers and tax professionals collaborate to save money on taxes. As the first company in decades to receive IRS approvals to E-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065 — we're re-inventing a complex category. Founded in 2023, Instead combines LLMs with tax law to make tax management a continuous, proactive process rather than a dreaded annual deadline.

Instead's investors include Sarah Guo from Conviction (conviction.com), IRIS (irisglobal.com) the largest tax software provider in the UK and many of our partners and customers who believe in our mission and vision. The Instead team comprises talented leaders from leading tax, financial services and fintech companies — Gusto, Intuit, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer — as well as top tax & accounting firms such as PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.

Instead was a 2024 Innovation Award Finalist in CPA Practice Advisor. Instead's CEO, Andrew Argue, is a CPA and has been named Top 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Profession twice - Ones To Watch and CPA Practice Advisors 20 under 40.

About the role

We're seeking an experienced Tax Manager to help clients unlock significant tax savings opportunities through strategic tax planning and implementation. In this client-facing role, you'll work year-round with individuals and businesses to identify tax strategies, guide implementation, and ensure seamless execution from planning through filing. You'll collaborate closely with our US and India team alongside our US-based tax & accounting firm partners to deliver comprehensive tax advisory services that go beyond traditional compliance work, handling both high-level strategic planning and hands-on preparation of complicated returns.

What you'll do

• Help clients identify tax savings opportunities through AI tax return analysis and utilize Instead.com to implement tax strategies throughout the full tax advisory process - from delivering tax plans, implementing tax strategies, and calculating estimated tax payments and filing tax returns
• Prepare and review federal and multi-state tax returns for 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065 depending on your expertise, background and experience
• Support tax planning engagements, performing research and preparing memos on relevant tax issues
• Collaborate with tax managers and staff, owners of firms, and taxpayers to deliver seamless tax advisory services alongside US team and accounting firms
• Assist in tax seniors, staff, and admins while ensuring compliance with firm procedures and tax laws

What you'll need

• 3–5 years of public accounting experience with strong exposure to tax compliance
• Proficient in preparing returns for (some not all) 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065 
• Proficient in reviewing returns for (some not all) 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065
• Strong organizational, analytical, and communication skills
• Comfortable working both independently and collaboratively in a team environment
• Experience with client-facing interactions and relationship management
• Ability to manage multiple engagements and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment

Nice to have

• CPA license active or pursuing
• EA (Enrolled Agent) license active or pursuing
• Experience with tax planning and advisory services beyond compliance
• Experience working with US-based accounting and tax firms
• Knowledge of multi-state tax compliance requirements
• Experience with complex tax research and memo writing

Why join us

• Work on a cutting-edge tax tech platform that's transforming the industry
• Be part of a collaborative, mission-driven team
• Competitive compensation and benefits
• Gain hands-on exposure to complex tax issues across diverse industries
• Work in a supportive environment with opportunities for mentorship and upward mobility
• Opportunity to help taxpayers find tax savings through tax advisory services, going beyond compliance
• Opportunity to build lasting client relationships and make a meaningful impact on their financial outcomes
• Working with Instead, the first product in decades to receive IRS approval to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, 1065.

Equal Opportunity Employer - M/F/D/V

As a global business, we rely on diversity of culture and thought to deliver on our goals. To ensure we can do that, we seek talented, qualified employees in all our operations around the world regardless of race, color, sex/gender, including pregnancy, gender identity and expression, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, age, marital status, citizen status, veteran status, or any other protected classification under applicable law. We also make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs in accordance with applicable law.

We trust our team with sensitive information, so all candidates who receive and accept employment offers must complete a background check before joining us.