Founding Engineer, Applied AI

We’re looking for a founding engineer at Sphere to help build the world’s first tax-focused LLM!

About Sphere

Sphere helps US software companies manage their global sales tax / VAT / GST compliance requirements.

Companies like Runway AI choose our platform because we’re the only product that offers true global coverage, is easy to implement and reasonably priced.

• We're growing rapidly (30%+ WoW revenue growth) and have signed customers like Runway AI, Weaviate, Zeplin, Sierra AI, Codeium, Ideogram + many more
• We're building the world's first tax-focused LLMs (which we believe will be the foundation for a broader cross border compliance platform; think Deel for international billing)
• We're well funded by Felicis Ventures and the founders of Flexport, Lyft, Betterup, Go1 and Xendit

Why this is a massive opportunity

🌍 The market is enormous: This is a ‘need to have’ solution for every business around the world once they hit a certain stage. It’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore (see below) and if businesses don’t collect and remit indirect tax, they end up paying for it out of pocket later.

🌬️ Strong macro tailwinds: Businesses are going global earlier and earlier and they’re not equipped to deal with cross border compliance. Additionally, tax authorities are clamping down on cross border tax compliance which means demand for this solution will continue to grow (e.g. EU forcing payment processors to hand over tax evaders from April 1, 2024).

✨ AI can change the game - a lot of processes related to tax compliance / research have been extremely manual and cumbersome to date. That’s why incumbents like Avalara, Vertex (and newer players like Anrok) haven’t been able to move outside the US. We think LLMs can change that.

🔮 Product vision: We believe that tax-focused LLMs will be the foundation of a broader cross border compliance platform that help businesses go global from day 1. We want to be the Deel for international billing.

What you will do

Within days:

• Work with our CEO and leading tax experts to apply cutting edge LLM capabilities to manual tax research processes. You’ll have the flexibility and resources to use whichever AI approaches you think are effective (RAG, fine-tuning, etc).
• Build solutions to identify authoritative sources of tax legislation and tax rate data across the web to feed our tax-focused AI systems
• Work directly with customers to solve their pain points. We need someone who has high empathy and is excited to work with tax experts and finance teams to solve cross border compliance issues

Within months:

• Architect an AI-powered system that collects, monitors and processes tax rate data from around the world
• Train a tax-focused LLM on global tax legislation and build the infrastructure to have it monitor any changes to legislation in real time
• Expand LLM focus to include legislation in adjacent compliance areas including withholding tax, e-invoicing and more

What we are looking for

A founding engineer with:

• Strong full stack expertise (Django/Python, Nextjs/React) and an interest in LLMs (prior AI experience not strictly necessary)
• Early stage experience - a desire to own something from the early stages and grind
• Ideally some background in the fintech or compliance realm
• A desire to work in person in our office in SF