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, and 2290 coming for tax year 2026. No one else can offer this, and no one else will for years as it takes that long to pass 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, and many of our partners and customers. Our team includes leaders from Intuit, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer, Gusto, PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.
The national publication Accounting Today, twice recognized me as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the Accounting Profession - Ones To Watch”.
About the role
In this role, you will get the chance to build innovative AI-powered tax software alongside a dynamic team. You'll work on both our customer-facing product Instead (instead.com) and our backend internal tooling that empowers our teams to build cutting-edge features. This role is at the forefront of leveraging AI to drive innovation across our platform, working on exciting high-value features for our customers. If you're passionate about working on real production use cases utilizing LLMs and want to contribute to groundbreaking AI applications in a fast-paced environment, you'll thrive as you help us drive innovation in tax technology.
Here is the tech you will get the chance to utilize:
- Front End: Vue, Nuxt, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS
- Back End: Go, Docker on AWS ECS/Fargate, PostgreSQL on AWS RDS
- AI: Cursor with Sonnet 3.5, Langchain, Helicone, Gemini, OpenAI's API utilizing 4o (still exploring best use cases for o1 pro) and any other piece of AI tech that we can get our hands on
What you'll do
- Ship full-stack product features end to end for our live customer platform
- Make key product improvements based on customer feedback and usage analytics
- Understand and solve critical product bugs across the full stack
- Build and integrate components for infrastructure, supporting production-level inference and advanced prompt engineering
- Create tools and internal platforms to enhance the productivity and capabilities of Instead's teams
- Additional projects as needed by the internal engineering team and US-based product teams
What you'll need
- Proficiency in full-stack development, with a strong understanding of web frameworks, backend systems, and cloud infrastructure
- Experience building backend systems and infrastructure that can support live products
- 3+ years of software development experience
- High attention to detail
- Fast learner who enjoys working in a fast-paced, innovative environment
Nice to have
- A track record of working on full-stack projects, end-to-end
- Experience with AI/ML frameworks and prompt engineering
- Experience programming using AI copilots such as Cursor, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, Windsurf, etc.
- Experience with the technologies in our current stack
- Experience building customer-facing products at scale
Why join us
- Ability to work with cutting edge AI in all stages of the software development lifecycle
- 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 product development, compliance, and technology
- Opportunity to work with cutting-edge AI technology in production environments
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.
Skills Required
- 3+ years of professional software engineering experience
- Strong proficiency in Go, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript
- Experience with web application development and RESTful APIs
- Familiarity with databases (PostgreSQL preferred)
- Strong CS fundamentals and system design skills
- Excellent communication skills in English
What We Do
Instead is revolutionizing the tax industry with our AI-powered software, designed to simplify and optimize tax strategies, calculations, and filings for businesses and accountants. Our platform leverages artificial intelligence to streamline the entire tax process, making it more efficient and cost-effective for companies of all sizes. Our current focus areas include: Tax Strategy Optimization: We offer AI-powered analysis to identify potential tax savings opportunities across U.S. tax strategies. Our system automatically applies relevant strategies based on each user's unique financial situation, maximizing tax benefits. Tax Calculations (Coming Soon): Our platform will provide precise tax calculations based on taxpayer scenarios, covering 63 U.S. income tax jurisdictions. This feature aims to reduce the time required for tax return preparation from 8-24 hours to less than 10 minutes. Tax Filing (Coming Soon): We're developing a streamlined, AI-driven tax filing process that will simplify this complex task for businesses and tax professionals alike. Our vision extends beyond the U.S. market, with plans to expand our services to cover tax strategies and calculations in most countries worldwide. At Instead, we believe in making sophisticated tax management accessible and affordable. Our pricing structure starts at just $16 per month for businesses, with options tailored for sole proprietors, various business entities, and specialized needs. For accounting firms, Instead Pro offers a powerful tool to expand services and deliver greater value to clients. Our AI-driven approach enables tax professionals to focus on complex issues and client relationships while automating routine tasks. Join us in revolutionizing the tax industry. Whether you're a growing startup, an established enterprise, or a tax professional, Instead is designed to maximize your tax efficiency and fuel your financial growth. Experience the future of tax management with Instead.
