Full-Time
Senior Software Engineer
Collective
201-500 employees
S Corporation setup and back-office services
Compensation Overview
$195k - $230k/yr
San Francisco, CA, USA
Hybrid
Hybrid work in San Francisco with in-office and remote flexibility.
 Software Engineering (1) |
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- At least 5 years of experience building and shipping production software in a product-focused environment.
- Strong full-stack engineering skills, such as Python, Django, React, or similar modern frameworks.
- A track record of owning features or systems end-to-end and delivering measurable user impact.
- Experience using AI developer tools, including copilots, code agents, or custom workflows, to ship faster rather than merely experimenting with them.
- Ability to take a loosely defined member problem and drive it to a shipped solution without waiting for a fully specified product requirements document.
- Product judgment to make effective scope and user-experience tradeoffs without a designer in every conversation.
- Clear communication and collaboration skills across technical and non-technical partners.
- Demonstrated ability to integrate AI agents and automation into development workflows and product features.
- Own features end-to-end by defining the problem, building the solution, deploying it, and iterating until it works.
- Ship high-quality, user-facing product experiences across frontend and backend systems.
- Partner with Product and Design to break down ambiguous problems into simple, effective solutions and build them.
- Leverage AI-powered development tools, including code generation, copilots, and agent workflows, to move faster and reduce manual overhead.
- Identify and implement AI capabilities in the product where they meaningfully improve the member experience.
- Ship continuously, instrument what is built, and use customer behavior and feedback to drive the next iteration.
- Make system design decisions that balance speed, scalability, and maintainability, and own the tradeoffs.
- Build and improve developer workflows through automation, internal tooling, and AI-assisted processes.
- Evaluate new tools, frameworks, and approaches, recommend what works, and discontinue what does not.
Collective provides tax-saving back-office services for self-employed entrepreneurs by helping them structure their business as an S Corporation. Members answer an eligibility questionnaire, are connected with an advisor, and form an S Corp if appropriate, then receive ongoing bookkeeping and payroll at no extra charge. A dedicated finance team and a Member Relationship Manager deliver monthly financial reports and personalized guidance. It operates on an affordable, tax-deductible membership model aimed at saving time and money while keeping finances organized.
Company Size
201-500
Company Stage
Early VC
Total Funding
$78.7M
Headquarters
San Francisco, California
Founded
2020
Get referred to Collective
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- April 2026 acquisition accelerates agentic AI automation across bookkeeping, scenario modeling, and tax work.
- July 2026 hiring signals ongoing product expansion across engineering, growth, and security functions.
- Thousands of members and 2023's $50 million funding support continued platform investment.
What critics are saying
- Bench, Pilot, Found, and Keeper Tax attack Collective's core self-employed tax niche daily.
- Open Ledger integration by late 2026 concentrates execution risk across accounting, AI, and compliance.
- If AI bookkeeping commoditizes, Collective becomes an expensive wrapper around standard tax software.
What makes Collective unique
- Collective owns accounting, payroll, formation, and tax workflows for solopreneurs.
- April 22, 2026 Open Ledger acquisition gives native accounting infrastructure and real-time ledger control.
- March 2024 Collective Accounting fused human advisors with AI expense categorization and deduction capture.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Stock Options
401(k) Retirement Plan
401(k) Company Match
Unlimited Paid Time Off
Home Office Stipend
Paid Parental Leave
Wellness Program
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↓ -1%1 year growth
↓ -1%2 year growth
↑ 0%Collective acquires embedded accounting start-up Open Ledger. Collective co-founder and CEO Hooman Radfar says the purchase will help the company accelerate the development of "a system of action", using AI to automate back office accounting functions for solo entrepreneurs. April 24, 2026 Financial management platform Collective has acquired Open Ledger, an embedded accounting start-up backed by Kindred Ventures, Blank Ventures, and HF0. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Created by founders Pryce Yebesi and Ashtyn Bell, Open Ledger operates an API that enables Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms to integrate AI-powered bookkeeping and financial reporting tools. Open Ledger will now merge with the Collective platform, which offers a suite of consolidated bookkeeping, payroll, and tax services targeting solo entrepreneurs. In a blog post announcing the deal, Hooman Radfar, co-founder and CEO of Collective, says the addition of Open Ledger "gives us more flexibility and capability as we build the future of the Business-of-One". Radfar says: "By focusing on stronger infrastructure, we expand the horizons for what we can build, how deeply we can integrate across workflows, and how quickly we can move toward not just a system of record, but a system of action." He describes this as "a system that works continuously on your behalf", able to file taxes and manage cash flow forecasting and acting as "the equivalent of a world-class CFO working 24/7". Collective, based in San Francisco, US, has been exploring the application of AI within the back office over the years. In March 2024, the company launched an AI-powered accounting suite featuring large language models to automate functions like expense categorisation and tax deduction capturing. Reporter, FinTech Futures Tyler Pathe is a financial reporter, moderator and investigator with a specific interest in financial technology, banking and the financial industry's latest innovations. Webinar | 26 May 2026 | Value first, technology second: Rethinking process transformation in finance and insurance Led by industry experts, this webinar will provide a practical, customer value-first framework to help you bridge the gap between business goals and IT execution.
Collective, a financial platform for self-employed entrepreneurs, has acquired Open Ledger, an embedded accounting platform that enables fintech companies to integrate accounting into their products. Financial terms were not disclosed. The acquisition gives Collective native control of accounting infrastructure, enabling faster deployment of AI agents with real-time access to transaction data and financial workflows. The platform can now automatically categorise expenses, calculate tax impacts and provide real-time scenario modelling. Founded to address the back-office burden faced by solopreneurs, Collective currently handles formation, bookkeeping, payroll and tax filing for thousands of members. With Open Ledger's integration, the company aims to build an AI-powered financial operating system for America's 30 million self-employed workers.
The Return Collective recently launched "Operation Sticker Flood," which has seen activists placing stickers on products that were either produced in Israel or on brands that economically support the far-right Israeli apartheid regime.
Collective has debuted an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered accounting platform designed for one-person operations. “As freelancers delve into the administration needed to properly pay their taxes and keep their books up to date, they’ve been shocked by their choices: pay expensive local accountants and bookkeepers that often leave them in the dark, or spend hours on DIY finance,” the company said in a news release announcing “Collective Accounting” Tuesday (March 19). “With today’s release, Collective has solidified itself as a third option, one that fuses human expertise with the efficiency of AI technology.”
The Digital Media Collective (TDMC) has been named a Google Premier Partner across Southern Africa for the third consecutive year.