Description
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
We're building the AI-powered operating system for tax. Think of what companies like Harvey, Legora, and Rogo are doing for legal and finance. We're doing that for tax and accounting, starting with deep tax preparation and compliance, and expanding into advisory, planning, and other professional service areas.
You'll own product areas end to end, from discovery through delivery. You'll work directly with customers (partners, tax managers, preparers, reviewers, and firm administrators), define what to build, and ship it. This is not a traditional PM role where you write specs and hand them off. You come from an engineering background, you can commit code, and you build alongside the team. You think in goals and outcomes, not projects and features.
You'll also own the competitive and integration landscape. You'll monitor competitors (Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, Intuit Pro Tax, and bolt-on solutions like Basis, Accrual, Filed, Juno) and study comparable AI companies to bring insights that shape our product direction. You'll manage third-party integrations that connect Instead to the tools firms already use.
What You'll Do
- Own a product area end to end, driving strategy, roadmap, and execution from customer discovery through launch
- Write code and commit alongside engineers. You're not just defining what to build, you're building it
- Work directly with accounting firm customers (partners, managers, preparers, reviewers, administrators) to understand their workflows and what they need from AI-powered tax technology
- Define and track goal-based metrics that prove your releases are moving the needle. Build customer feedback into a quantitative system across multiple vectors, not just qualitative anecdotes
- Own the competitive landscape: monitor Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters, Intuit Pro Tax, Basis, Accrual, Filed, Juno, and other players. Bring insights back to shape product decisions
- Study comparable AI companies (Harvey, Legora, Rogo) to identify patterns and opportunities we can apply to tax
- Manage integrations with third-party tools and platforms that accounting firms depend on
- Partner with engineering and design to ship features on a weekly cadence using Linear
- Collaborate with GTM teams to translate product capabilities into positioning, demos, and customer enablement
What You Bring
- 4+ years of product management experience at a B2B SaaS company
- Engineering background. You can read and write code, review PRs, and contribute directly to the codebase when needed
- Experience shipping products that real customers depend on in production
- Strong analytical skills. You use data and customer feedback as quantitative inputs to drive decisions, not just gut instinct
- Excellent communication skills. You can run a customer interview, write a clear product spec, and present to leadership in the same day
- Comfort with AI-powered products. You understand how AI agents, LLMs, and prompt engineering shape product decisions
- Experience in tax, accounting, legal tech, or professional services is a strong plus
What Makes Someone Exceptional
- You've shipped AI-powered products in production and understand the difference between a demo and a product that works at scale
- You can sit with anyone at a firm, from the managing partner to a first-year preparer, and understand their workflow deeply enough to design a product that replaces their existing tools
- You think in outcomes, not features. You measure success by whether the firm actually changed how they work, not whether the feature launched
- You respond to customer feedback the same day it comes in and you've built systems to turn that feedback into prioritized, measurable product goals
- You shift naturally between writing code, talking to customers, analyzing usage data, and presenting strategy, all in the same week
Compensation
$200,000 base + equity
Location
San Francisco (on-site)
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.
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