Software Engineer Full-stack at Columntax

Software Engineer (Full-stack)

At Column Tax, we’re building the next generation of tax software. Our mission is to make it possible for every taxpayer to file confidently in just one click. As the fastest-growing tax e-filer of all time, we’ve already helped millions of Americans. Come help us build delightful, transparent, and easy-to-use tax products — and bring that experience to many, many millions more!

What we are looking for at Column Tax

• Improvise, adapt, overcome. We’re a startup — everyone jumps in across teams to solve problems and create forward motion.

• Empathy, communication, and teamwork. Tax software isn’t a solo effort. You’ll collaborate closely with engineers, tax analysts, designers, and GTM on nearly every project.

• Ownership mindset. Everyone shapes the product and engineering roadmap

• Fierce execution. We focus week to week, to deliver real value to taxpayers and partners.

What we are looking for in the role

• 4-6+ years of professional experience in software engineering or a related role.

• Track record of taking full ownership of projects from spec to ship to scale.

• Regularly takes on work beyond their current comfort zone, learning new languages, systems, or domains in order to deliver real value.

• Comfortable working and reasoning across the stack whether frontend, backend, or infrastructure.

• Bonus points for experience in tax, bookkeeping, embedded fintech.

• Bonus points for a blend of startup scrappiness and working in high-scale systems.

• Based in San Francisco 🌉 / New York City🗽, and excited to be in-office at least 3 days a week. If you're not local but are open to relocating, let us know!

Day-to-day

• Build tools and frameworks that enable efficient development and validation of tax calculations - our engineers work hard to empower our Tax Analyst team to move quickly with quality.

• Build and extend our APIs for our partners - Our partners are key to our success. We empower our partners by creating APIs that make integration seamless and intuitive.

• Create UI for our embedded tax platform - Work with Design and the Tax teams to translate complicated tax code into a delightful UI that anyone can use.

• Ingest and process millions of data points - from uploaded documents, partner integrations, and external APIs to accurately auto-fill tax returns so taxpayers don’t have to.

Week-to-week

• Week 1: Meet the team, ship to prod on day one, fix 1–2 bugs to get acclimated.

• Month 1: Lead and ship a small feature, review PRs, and demo at all-hands.

• Month 3: Own a larger project, help scope future work, mentor teammates, and lead process improvements.

Interview Process

Step 1: Intro call with our Head of Engineering (or a team member)

This is a two-way conversation. We’ll talk about your background, what you’re looking for next, and the kinds of problems you enjoy solving. You’ll also get a chance to learn more about Column — how we work, what we value, and how we’d support you if you joined. Bring questions!

Step 2: Take home challenge

We’ll ask you to complete a ~3-hour project that mirrors the kind of integration or tooling work we do every day. You’ll have full freedom to do it your way — this is about decision-making, clarity, and implementation, not code golf.

Step 3: Interview panels

The interview panels are where you’ll meet several of us and work through collaborative challenges. The interviews are designed to mimic real work — like redesigning a creaky system, debugging in a sandboxed environment, and walking through a past project. The interview panels are over video calls and ~4.5 hours total over two days.

Step 4: Offer

Before making a formal offer, we like to speak with a few people you’ve worked closely with — usually a manager or peer. It helps us understand how to support you best. If all looks good, we’ll move quickly to extend an offer and kick off what we hope is a long, rewarding partnership.

How to apply

At Column Tax, we’re committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace. If this sounds exciting — even if you’re not sure you meet every requirement — we hope you’ll apply. We’re looking for people, not checkboxes.

Email us at [email protected] with your LinkedIn/GitHub or apply here: