Software Engineer

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

You'll build the AI-powered tax platform that hundreds of accounting firms use every day. You'll work across the full stack, shipping features on our customer-facing product and building internal tooling that powers our engineering team. This is production AI work, not research. You'll be writing code that handles real tax returns, real deadlines, and real customer data.

Our stack: Vue, Nuxt, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS on the frontend. Go, Docker on AWS ECS/Fargate, and PostgreSQL on AWS RDS on the backend. For AI, we use Cursor, Claude Code, Helicone, Gemini, and OpenAI, and we're constantly evaluating new tools.
What You'll Do

• Ship full-stack product features end to end for our live customer platform
• Build and integrate AI-powered components including production-level inference and prompt engineering
• Make key product improvements based on customer feedback and usage analytics
• Solve critical product bugs across the full stack with high urgency during tax season
• Create tools and internal platforms that enhance the productivity of Instead's engineering and product teams
• Partner with US-based product teams to translate customer needs into technical solutions
• Contribute to architecture decisions as the team scales

What You Bring

• 3+ years of software development experience
• Proficiency in full-stack development with a strong understanding of web frameworks, backend systems, and cloud infrastructure
• Experience building and shipping production software that real customers depend on
• High attention to detail. Tax work has consequences, and our code needs to be right
• Fast learner who thrives in a fast-paced environment where priorities shift quickly
• Experience with AI/ML frameworks, prompt engineering, or AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) is a strong plus
• Experience with our stack (Vue/Nuxt, Go, AWS, PostgreSQL) is a plus but not required

What Makes Someone Exceptional

• You ship fast without sacrificing quality. You know when to cut corners and when the details matter
• You've built customer-facing products at scale and understand what it means when real users depend on your code
• You actively use AI tools in your development workflow. You see AI as a force multiplier, not a novelty
• You can work across the full stack and context-switch between frontend polish and backend infrastructure
• You care about the product, not just the code. You understand why a feature matters to customers, not just how to build it

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.