Steven Schmatz

Product Engineer (Taste Focus)

Taxwire

OtherRemote📍 Remote
Posted by Steven Schmatz

Overview

You're building the user-facing product at a 16-person sales tax compliance startup. You take the core tax calculation engine and turn it into interfaces that finance teams use to understand exposure, file returns, and manage compliance. You're expected to have taste—to know what makes a good UX—and ship fast.


Role Snapshot

AspectDetails
Role TypeFull-stack Product Engineer / Frontend-leaning
FocusUser-facing features, not core infrastructure
Team SizeSmall (~5-8 engineers), probably 1-2 product/design people
AutonomyHigh - you're expected to make product calls, not just implement specs
Iteration SpeedFast - features are "easily changeable" per the post
Design InvolvementHeavy - might be doing your own design work or very close collaboration

Company Context

Stage: Seed to Series A (16 employees)

Size: Very small team, wearing multiple hats

Growth: Building out product and GTM

Market Position: Fighting against Avalara, TaxJar, etc. - likely competing on better UX since the underlying tax logic is commoditized


What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Feature Development (60%) | Product Decisions (20%) | Bug Fixes/Support (20%)

Key Activities

  • Building dashboards and workflows: Finance teams need to see their tax exposure by jurisdiction, file returns, manage exemption certificates, reconcile what was collected vs. what should have been. You're building these interfaces.
  • Making product calls: The post emphasizes "taste." You're not just coding to a Figma mockup—you're deciding what the flow should be, what information to surface, what to hide.
  • Working with actual users: At 16 people, you're probably talking directly to customers. You see what they struggle with and iterate.
  • Fast iteration on UI/UX: CTO explicitly mentions this is "easily changeable" work. You're shipping features, getting feedback, and adjusting quickly.
  • Integration work: Customers need to connect their e-commerce platform, ERP, or accounting system. You're building these connectors or improving them.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

  • Tax compliance is boring to most users: You're trying to make something engaging that people only use because they have to. That's a design challenge.
  • Users are finance/accounting people: They're not tech-savvy early adopters. Your interface needs to be dead simple and handle edge cases gracefully.
  • Small team = context overload: You need to understand enough about tax rules to build good UX, but you're not the architecture expert. Balancing depth vs. breadth is tough.
  • "Taste" is subjective: The CTO wants opinionated product builders, but taste disagreements can be frustrating, especially in a small team where every decision matters.
  • Customer expectations are shaped by incumbents: People expect certain workflows because that's how Avalara does it. Innovating is risky.

What Success Looks Like

  • Features you ship get used and don't create support burden
  • Customers prefer your UX to competitors'
  • You can ship a feature end-to-end without needing much hand-holding
  • You make good product calls that co-founders agree with

The Team You're Joining

CTO's Philosophy: Values engineers with taste who can "vibe-code" an interface customers will love. Looking for people who care about the end-user experience, not just writing code.

What They Care About:

  • Can you build interfaces that are intuitive and delightful (or at least not painful)?
  • Do you have opinions on what makes good UX?
  • Can you iterate fast and learn from real usage?

Team Culture (inferred):

  • Small, opinionated team
  • Direct access to customers and co-founders
  • Expectation that you'll own features end-to-end
  • Probably moving fast with less process/structure

Who You're Building For

Primary Users:

  • Finance/accounting teams at growing companies
  • People who are drowning in sales tax complexity and spreadsheets
  • Non-technical users who need software to "just work"

What They Care About:

  • Can I trust this is calculating tax correctly?
  • Is this easier than my current workflow (spreadsheets, manual filing, or clunky incumbent software)?
  • Will this save me time or just create more work?
  • Can I get help when something breaks?

Requirements

  • Strong frontend/full-stack engineering skills
  • Demonstrated taste in product and UX (portfolio, side projects, examples)
  • Comfort with ambiguity and making product decisions
  • Ability to ship features quickly and iterate based on feedback
  • Empathy for non-technical users
  • Startup experience helpful - small teams, fast pace, wearing multiple hats