International Indirect Tax Compliance Specialist (VAT/GST)

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're looking for an International Indirect Tax Compliance Specialist to help execute and scale our international tax compliance operations. Working closely with the Compliance Lead and Tax leadership, you'll own the day-to-day filing process for a portfolio of countries and customers, ensuring returns are prepared, reviewed, and submitted accurately and on time.

That covers a wide range of obligations, and the list keeps growing:

- Domestic VAT and GST returns, including annual returns where required (for example Germany, Italy and Spain)

- Non-resident and simplified regimes: EU OSS and IOSS, UK, Switzerland, Norway VOEC, India OIDAR, Japan JCT, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand

- EC Sales Lists

- SAF-T and similar data filings (for example Poland JPK, Portugal and Romania D406)

This role focuses on VAT, GST and similar taxes outside the US. US sales tax is handled by a separate team.

Beyond executing filings, you'll play a key role in improving how we operate and expand globally. You'll partner with Engineering to automate manual workflows, identify opportunities to streamline processes, and help build a more scalable, technology-driven tax compliance function. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys combining operational excellence with process improvement and is excited to help modernize tax operations.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Within days

Work directly with our compliance lead and tax leadership on the below:

- Prepare, review, and file VAT/GST returns accurately and on schedule across multiple countries and filing frequencies

- Monitor filing status and operational metrics, proactively identifying risks and driving issues to resolution

- Perform reconciliations between tax returns, payments, and remittance records, investigating and resolving discrepancies

- Manage filing calendars, deadlines, and dependencies to consistently meet compliance obligations

Within months

- Own a portfolio of countries end to end, and build a filing playbook for each one

- Work with fiscal representatives, local agents and external reviewers, and manage tax portal access and digital certificates (for example Elster, AEAT and HMRC MTD)

- Execute process and automation improvements in collaboration with the broader Tax team and Engineering

- Flag process gaps, errors, and risk areas

- Take on a growing share of filing volume as the business scales

- Work with the Customer Success team to build a knowledge base and trainings to address customer questions

REQUIREMENTS

- 3+ years of experience preparing, reviewing, and filing high volumes of VAT/GST returns across multiple countries, ideally at a Big 4 firm or an outsourced VAT compliance provider covering 10+ countries