Founding Forward Deployed Accountant
The short version: we're building AI infrastructure for finance work that a qualified accountant is willing to put their name to. We need one of those accountants to help us decide what that actually means.
The problem we're working on
Most AI finance tools land in one of two ditches. Either they automate the judgement away and produce output nobody senior will sign, or they surface so much for review that you'd have been quicker doing it yourself.
We think the interesting work is in between. Machines are good at pattern matching, speed and scale. Accountants are good at context, judgement and knowing when something smells wrong. The hard part isn't building either half — it's drawing the line between them, task by task, and being right about where it sits.
We're starting with accounting automation. The broader question is the one we keep coming back to: what does it take to give a finance professional AI they'd actually rely on?
What you'd be doing
You'd deploy into client finance teams alongside our engineering side and lead the change from the inside. That means sitting with their people, working out where the real bottlenecks are rather than the ones on the org chart, and rebuilding how the function runs.
You own the accounting logic. What the system does, where it stops, what a human has to look at before anything leaves the building — those are your calls to make and defend.
Early on it also means doing the work itself. There is no layer beneath you yet.
Who this fits
Someone restless in a traditional firm who has thought more than once about how much of the job shouldn't exist. You know the rules and you know why they're written that way, which is what lets you tell the difference between a control that matters and a habit nobody's questioned. You'd rather build the thing than run the process.
You don't need an AI background. You need to be genuinely curious about it and hard to fool.
Hard requirements
- Qualified - or within 12 months of qualifying —-as an ACA, ACCA, CIMA, ICAS, CPA, CA or equivalent
- 3+ years' professional accounting or finance experience
- Hands-on with month-end close, bank reconciliations, GL review and financial reporting
- Working knowledge of UK GAAP, US GAAP or both, and the judgement to flag when local expertise is needed
- Practical experience on at least one of QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage or NetSuite
- Comfortable client-facing: chasing down unclear transactions and defending an accounting judgement to someone who disagrees
- Able to work some UK–US overlap when client work calls for it
- Right to work in the UK
This probably isn't for you if
- You want a defined remit and a clean handover. There isn't one.
- You only want the interesting 20%. Early on, the other 80% is also yours.
- You need to know what this role looks like in a year. Neither do we, yet.
Where we are
[Early validation - replace with the specific: live pilot, named client type, whatever is true.] [Advisors - name the backgrounds, or cut this line.]
How the process runs
Application, then a case study task, then a conversation with the team, then a paid work trial. We won't ask you to work for free beyond the case study, and we'll tell you where you stand at each stage.
Pay: £140,000.00-£160,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company events
- Gym membership
- Health & wellbeing programme
- Private dental insurance
- Referral programme
- Work from home
Work Location: Remote
