Director, Tax

Company Overview Deepgram is the leading platform underpinning the emerging trillion-dollar Voice AI economy, providing real-time APIs for speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and building production-grade voice agents at scale. More than 200,000 developers and 1,300+ organizations build voice offerings that are ‘Powered by Deepgram’, including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Daily, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. Deepgram’s voice-native foundation models are accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted and on-premises software, with unmatched accuracy, low latency, and cost efficiency. Backed by a recent Series C led by leading global investors and strategic partners, Deepgram has processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed more than 1 trillion words. There is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram. Company Operating Rhythm At Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren’t optional, they’re core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance. Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do. Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. This may not be the right role if you’re not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you’re seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5. Deepgram is hiring a Director, Tax to stand up our tax function from foundation and run it through our first external audit and into public markets. You'll be our first dedicated tax hire — reporting directly with the CAO and working directly alongside our CFO and our small finance team, building from a clean slate supported by outside advisors. There's a lot to figure out. You'll set the tax positions, scope and direct external advisors, and be the senior technical voice with our auditors, the IRS, and state revenue agencies. At Deepgram we expect an AI-first mindset. AI use isn't optional — it's core to how we operate. Every team member is expected to use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and build their own into everyday work. What You'll Do Stand up the tax function from foundation. You're our first dedicated tax hire, working from a clean slate with outside advisors. Set the operating model, the positions, the calendar, the tooling. Own the multi-state nexus picture — payroll, customer, and economic nexus across our remote workforce and customer footprint. Build the registration and compliance roadmap and execute it. Define and defend US federal tax positions — R&D credit (§41), §174, capitalized software, equity comp deductions, pre-IPO restructuring. Build our international tax foundation. We're early in global expansion and you'll own the design from the ground up — transfer pricing model and intercompany agreements, IP location and migration, GILTI/FDII, entity structure, permanent establishment risk. Build the sales and use tax operating model — taxability, nexus monitoring, registrations, returns, exemption certificates. Strong opinions on the right tooling. Quarterback external tax advisors — direct, scope, and decide what stays in-house. Today: Big 4 federal compliance. You'll scope SALT, international, and transfer pricing engagements as needed. Partner with the Director, Technical Accounting & FR on equity comp (ASC 718 / IRC 409A), business combinations (ASC 805 / §338, PPAs), capitalized software, and complex financing instruments. When the time comes, build our first ASC 740 provision from scratch — workpapers, footnotes, disclosures, tie-outs — with the rigor an external audit and S-1 require. We're not yet running a provision; you'll stand it up as audit prep requires it. Lay the foundation for public-company tax disclosure and SOX readiness — workflows, controls, and calendars to support 10-K / 10-Q tax footnotes. Use AI extensively — research, memo drafting, nexus analysis, transfer pricing benchmarking, peer disclosure scraping, workflow automation — and build your own tooling where it helps. Build the team as we scale. What You'll Need Active CPA, JD with tax LLM, or MST. Big 4 or national firm tax foundation. 8+ years of progressive corporate tax experience. Deep fluency in US federal and multi-state, plus hands-on international tax — transfer pricing, IP structuring, GILTI/FDII, intercompany. We're early in our international exposure and you'll be the one who builds it; experience at a company that's done this before is required. Hands-on technical range across what'll define our audit and S-1 — federal positions including R&D credit and §174, multi-state SALT, indirect tax, equity-comp tax, ASC 740. You can take a gnarly issue and come back with a defensible position you reasoned through yourself. Experience preparing or rebuilding tax provisions, footnotes, and disclosures from scratch — not just reviewing them. Experience managing external auditors and tax consultants — scope, direct, push back. Comfort vibe-coding scripts and small automations (Python, SQL, or equivalent) — for nexus monitoring, provision tie-outs, exposure modeling, pulling structured data from messy sources. Required, not optional. We're looking for a leader who'll write the scripts that replace the work, not just describe what should be automated. A builder's instinct — comfort with ambiguity, no waiting for playbooks, strong bias to ship. AI-native working style — you use LLMs daily and can talk concretely about what they do well and where they fall short for tax. Strong written and verbal communication — you can translate tax for non-tax stakeholders without losing precision. High integrity, high ownership, low ego. It Would Be Great If You Had Prior experience preparing a company for its first external audit and S-1 / IPO. Prior experience standing up an in-house tax function at a high-growth company. SaaS or AI-business tax experience — capitalized software, sales tax for SaaS, customer-base international expansion. Multi-state employee mobility, RSU/ISO equity-comp tax mobility, and §83(b) coordination at scale. Working knowledge of provision tools (OneSource, Corptax, Longview), sales tax engines (Avalara, Anrok, Vertex), and research platforms — and strong opinions about them.