Senior full stack engineer at Sphere building compliance infrastructure for global trade. Focus on Python/Django backend, filing systems, tax engines, and AI-native product features for a YC-backed fintech startup.
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.
Sphere is looking for senior full stack engineers who will own and build out new product lines (input tax, withholding tax, e-invoicing, tariffs) as well as mission critical parts of the Sphere platform (filing infrastructure, tax engine and AI / agentic related features).
These areas are key levers towards scaling Sphere and growing ARR, meaning that your work will have a direct impact on the growth of the business on a daily basis.
Within weeks:
Ship mission critical features that clients will use daily - e.g. filing infrastructure
Own and manage a feature and drive measurable outcomes
Work directly with customers like Eleven Labs, Lovable and Deel to improve / optimize that key component of the platform (e.g. improve filing generation and submission speed [x]%)
Within months:
Own the end-to-end development of new products lines that will help build out our AI-native revenue-based compliance platform
Lead / mentor additional engineers in component areas that you have worked in
Experience in Python . Our core application backend and data pipeline services are built with Python and Django
While frontend / React may not be your primary focus, you’re not afraid to dive in when needed
Very strong attention to detail. When you work with numbers this is a non-negotiable - it’s not enough to be 99% right.
Experience working with large volumes of transaction data. You’ll be getting very familiar with it!
Experience with Django or Python ORM
You'll thrive here if:
You're a Dog. You've been underestimated, gone through struggle, and never stopped running. You have a chip on your shoulder and enormous drive. You look at Stripe, Deel, and Flexport all punting on compliance and think: good, that means the opportunity is ours. Hunger beats pedigree.
Early stage is in your bones. You've built things where there's no playbook and nobody handing you the answer. You define the problem instead of waiting for instructions.
You own it end to end. Give you a goal and you figure out your own path. Small team, global surface area — everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. No one tells you how.
You believe speed and accuracy are both possible. We're building a complex product that requires robustness and 100% uptime, and we have to build at our customers' pace. Move fast. Don't break things. Both.
Being in the room is a feature, not a cost. Five days in SF isn't a policy, it's how the work gets done. The speed and density of collaboration we need doesn't survive over video.
This won't be a fit if:
You need structure handed to you or ambiguity feels draining rather than motivating
You want to manage people more than own hard problems (we're a flat, experienced team — everyone builds)
You're used to "good enough" shipping (small errors have outsized impact here)
Being in the room five days a week feels like a cost instead of a benefit