About Instead Instead is where tax work gets done. Our AI agent orchestrates the entirety of how work gets done in tax, from preparation and compliance to filing and advisory. It's a fundamentally new way of doing tax work, and it's why top 500 firms, Big Four teams, and enterprise corporate tax departments are choosing Instead.

What makes us unique: we hold full government approvals with the IRS, 48 states, and all cities to e-file 1040, 1041, 1120, 1120S, and 1065, with 706, 709, 990, 5500, 2290, and PPT coming for tax year 2026. Instead is a full replacement for CCH Axcess, GoSystem, UltraTax, OneSource, CorpTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, and more. No other tax startup will be able to offer these capabilities for years as we are two to three years ahead of everyone else in government approvals.

This lets us build product experiences that are simply unmatched in the market. Instead is backed by Conviction, IRIS (the largest tax software provider in the UK), Skylark, Aprio, and many of our partners and customers. Our team includes leaders from Intuit, Gusto, Zenefits, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer, PwC, BDO, RSM, and KPMG.

About The Role

As Partnerships Manager, you'll own and scale Instead's most strategic growth channel: partnerships with CPA firms, accounting networks, tax technology companies, and professional services organizations. This is a builder role. You'll be identifying, closing, and operationalizing the relationships that drive Instead's distribution and revenue at scale.

There are maybe 50-100 people in the world who have the right combination of tax/accounting industry relationships, partnership execution experience, and the ability to operate in a fast-moving AI company. If you're one of them, we want to talk.

What You'Ll Do

com, state CPA conferences, tax technology summits) and build executive-level relationships across the ecosystem Track partnership performance rigorously: pipeline generated, revenue influenced, firms onboarded, retention impact Help define Instead's partner program structure, tiers, incentives, and enablement as we scale from early partnerships to a mature channel What You Bring 5-10+ years in partnerships, business development, or channel sales within accounting, tax, or professional services technology Deep existing relationships in the CPA/accounting firm ecosystem. You know the players, the decision-makers, and how firms actually buy technology Proven track record of closing and scaling technology partnerships that drove measurable revenue outcomes Experience working with Top 100 or Top 250 accounting firms, regional firms, or CPA networks Strong commercial instincts.

Compensation

$200-250K OTE (base + variable) + equity Why Instead You'll be building the partnerships function at one of the f