Opportunities from Sphere Finance (ashby)

ABOUT SPHERE Every breakthrough in trade infrastructure has followed the same pattern: reduce a transaction cost, expand the market. Containerization for goods. SWIFT for money. Stripe for payments. Compliance is one of the last and largest — and the hardest, because trade rules aren't data to be looked up. They're a complex adaptive system with 190+ sovereign jurisdictions, in different languages, changing constantly, reacting to each other. Sphere built the system that solves it. Our AI (TRAM) ingests global trade law, interprets it, resolves conflicts across jurisdictions, and produces compliance determinations more reliable than human experts. We handle the entire lifecycle — calculation, registration, filing, remittance — at millisecond latency with zero downtime.

• Backed by a16z and YC. $21M Series A, 30%+ month-over-month growth, customers include ElevenLabs, Replit, Deel, Runway, and Lovable.
• Small team, global surface area. Everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. San Francisco, five days in office.
• The problem keeps compounding. Expanding into input tax, withholding, e-invoicing, tariffs — each multiplies the complexity. Tens of millions of transactions today, billions ahead. THE ROLE We are seeking an experienced indirect tax professional to train and continuously improve TRAM, our AI-driven tax engine. You will be the human check on the machine — reviewing TRAM's determinations and monitoring results at speed and volume, catching errors before they reach customers, and feeding structured findings back into the system so it gets smarter over time. This is a hands-on review role, not an advisory one: you'll spend most of your time working through TRAM's output, one determination at a time, with sharp accuracy and fast turnaround. Over time, you'll also help shape the tax taxonomy underpinning the system and support deeper research where TRAM's findings need a second opinion. WHAT YOU'LL DO
• Review and validate TRAM-generated determinations at high volume, with speed and precision
• Flag errors, edge cases, and recurring patterns, and translate them into clear, actionable feedback for TRAM to learn from
• Serve as the internal subject matter expert across indirect taxes (sales tax, VAT, GST)
• Conduct tax research when a determination needs deeper investigation or a judgment call
• Contribute to taxonomy design and definitions REQUIREMENTS
• 4+ years of experience in indirect taxation (sales tax, VAT, and/or GST)
• Strong understanding of indirect tax systems in the US and/or internationally, with willingness to expand into whichever you know less
• Proven ability to work quickly and accurately through high volumes of tax content without sacrificing attention to detail
• Global mindset - Sphere was never built as a US-centric product; we think internationally, and we want people who join us to do the same
• High attention to detail - one of our key values is ‘Sweating the details’ and it is essential in our business
• Strong communication skills - we work at an extremely fast pace and so clear, concise communication is essential
• Multitasking capabilities - a lot will be thrown at you and you’ll need to manage your time wisely
• Fluency in another widely spoken language, such as Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese, etc. NICE TO HAVE
• Hands-on experience with tax automation or compliance platforms WHO YOU ARE You'll thrive here if:
• You're a Dog. You've been underestimated, gone through struggle, and never stopped running. You have a chip on your shoulder and enormous drive. You look at Stripe, Deel, and Flexport all punting on compliance and think: good, that means the opportunity is ours. Hunger beats pedigree.
• Early stage is in your bones. You've built things where there's no playbook and nobody handing you the answer. You define the problem instead of waiting for instructions.
• You own it end to end. Give you a goal and you figure out your own path. Small team, global surface area — everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. No one tells you how.
• You believe speed and accuracy are both possible. We're building a complex product that requires robustness and 100% uptime, and we have to build at our customers' pace. Move fast. Don't break things. Both. This won't be a fit if:
• You need structure handed to you or ambiguity feels draining rather than motivating
• You want to manage people more than own hard problems (we're a flat, experienced team — everyone builds)
• You're used to "good enough" shipping (small errors have outsized impact here)