{"id":137487,"url":"https://alion.io/job/sphere-ai-engineer","title":"AI Engineer","company":{"id":920,"name":"Sphere","domain":"getsphere.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/sphere","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Work at a Startup","truth_index":null},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":180000,"max":250000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":250000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":6,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Fine-tuning","optional":false},{"name":"Lovable","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"RAG","optional":false},{"name":"Replit","optional":false},{"name":"Runway","optional":false},{"name":"Windsurf","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-27T20:11:56Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-13","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T22:49:26Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":50,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":50},"description":"Sphere has built the world’s first AI-native tax engine that helps companies like Lovable, Eleven Labs, Replit, Runway AI, Windsurf (+ many more) automate their sales tax, VAT and GST obligations:\nWe're growing rapidly (34%+ MoM revenue growth) and helping the fastest growing tech companies around the world including Lovable, Eleven Labs, Replit, Windsurf, Fathom, Linktree, Photoroom, Sierra AI, Zed etc\n\nWe’ve spent the last 1.5 years building local rails into tax authorities in both the US and internationally to properly automate compliance processes (no other vendor has done this)\n\nWe're building the world's first AI-native tax engine (which will be the foundation for a broader cross border compliance platform; think Deel for international billing)\n\nWe're well funded by Andreessen Horowitz, YC and Felicis Ventures\n\nSphere is looking for an AI engineer to help build out its proprietary Tax Review and Assessment Model (TRAM) across jurisdictions and other compliance areas.\nYou will be pushing the frontiers of what's possible with AI in the finance space and building the core piece of technology that shape the future of Sphere.\nWhy this is a massive opportunity:\nMassive TAM: Every business around the world needs this. Compliance isn’t optional.\nStrong macro tailwinds: Businesses are expanding globally at a faster pace, while tax authorities are cracking down on cross-border compliance, driving urgent demand.\nAI advantage: Incumbents can’t scale beyond the U.S.; our AI-native tax engine can.\nProduct vision: Indirect tax is just the start; we’re building the Deel for international billing.\nWhat you will do:\nWithin weeks:\nLead development of new features aimed at increasing TRAM’s test-time accuracy\n\nWork on the underlying data and retrieval pipelines that help power our AI workflows\n\nWork directly with our internal tax experts to understand how TRAM can better reason like them\n\nWithin months:\nOwn TRAM’s eval framework and workflows\n\nWork directly with leading frontier labs to reinforce fine tune models on our proprietary data\n\nRequirements:\nPrior experience building AI enabled products, particularly RAG systems\n\nExperience fine tuning base models, ideally via RFT\n\nWillingness to dive into tax technical problems - if you aren’t willing to dive deep on how the model should reason through the tax research process you won’t be effective\n\nA strong understanding of how LLMs and reasoning models function\n\nNice to have:\nExperience working with LLMs on legal applications\n\nExperience with RAG data pipelines and collecting/curating data for the pipeline\n\nWhat’s important to us:\nThe Dog: Grit > pedigree.\n\nShip fast: If it can be done today, do it today.\n\nSelf-starter: No hand-holding\n\nAccountability: You’ll be held accountable to objective, measurable targets each month.\n\nIn-person: SF only.","description_format":"text","description_chars":2827,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":6,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Accounting & Tax Software","Tax Advisory & Preparation"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-27T20:11:56Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":20,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.452,"p_room":0.45,"age_days":49,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:0","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":250000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/sphere-ai-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/sphere-ai-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-17T02:04:21Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2991,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-18T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":920},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=920"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsphere-ai-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fsphere-ai-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fsphere-ai-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/sphere-ai-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsphere-ai-engineer"}]}