Director, Tax

Kickstarter is seeking an experienced Director, Tax to lead our tax function and set the strategic direction for tax across the company and its subsidiaries globally. This role focuses on indirect tax (e.g., VAT, GST, and sales tax) strategy related to Kickstarter’s marketplace sales products, with direct tax matters also under this scope.

You’ll serve as the company’s primary internal tax authority, advising executive leadership and collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders including legal, product, and finance on the tax implications of new markets, product offerings, and structures. You’ll modernize and scale Kickstarter’s tax technology and processes for our global user base.

This is a high-visibility role for a strategic tax leader who is highly curious, stays ahead of evolving tax guidance across jurisdictions, and wants to build a function—not just run one.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the company’s global indirect tax strategy, setting priorities and risk tolerance in partnership with Finance and Legal leadership.
• Build, manage, and develop a tax team, establishing standards, workflows, and career development paths as the function scales.
• Set the roadmap for the Company’s tax technology stack (including Avalara and adjacent tools), leading automation and process initiatives that reduce manual operations and support global expansion.
• Design and implement indirect tax processes and controls purpose-built for a marketplace model, drawing on prior experience standing up this kind of process at another marketplace or online platform.
• Serve as the primary relationship owner for the Company’s external tax advisors across jurisdictions, directing engagement priorities and ensuring advice and assumed risk are clearly communicated to executive stakeholders.
• Act as the primary resource when assessing tax impact and explaining Kickstarter’s tax policy with strategic new and existing creators and high-value partners.
• Ultimately own the accuracy, timeliness, and integrity of VAT, sales tax, and corporate filings across all applicable jurisdictions, overseeing the team and advisors who execute them.
• Partner directly with Legal, Product, and executive leadership to evaluate and structure the tax implications of new offerings, markets, and business models, including entity structuring and cross-border considerations.
• Own transfer pricing policy and documentation across subsidiaries, in partnership with external advisors.
• Lead the Company’s response to tax notices and audits, including managing outside counsel and advisors on higher-stakes or multi-jurisdiction matters.
• Partner with the Insights team to establish reconciliation standards between internal data and filed returns, and resolve discrepancies at a structural level.
• Direct product testing standards for tax calculation accuracy as the Company launches new features or expands into new jurisdictions.
• Own the tax input into the Company’s audited financial statements, partnering with Accounting leadership on technical positions, disclosures, and month-end close for all tax-related entries.
• Act as the executive-level point of contact for tax matters in board and audit committee materials, as needed.
• Set the strategy and standards for the Company’s tax help center and customer-facing indirect tax content, ensuring accuracy and consistency as the product evolves.

Requirements:

• Extensive experience in indirect tax leadership, ideally including time at a two-sided marketplace or platform business, with an understanding of how those models complicate tax treatment.
• Hands-on technical proficiency with Avalara and comparable tax engines—not just oversight, but the ability to work inside the tooling to configure, troubleshoot, and improve it.
• Big 4 accounting experience at the Senior Manager level or above, or equivalent experience at a top law firm, with a track record built in fast-paced, high-precision environments.
• Experience working at companies both big and small, and understanding how tax function needs change as a company scales.
• Experience building training and enablement for internal, non-tax-expert audiences in partnership with Finance and Legal, helping teams outside of tax make sound day-to-day decisions.
• Deep technical grounding in how tax code actually works, with pragmatic instincts for discerning real and actionable risk versus theoretical risk.
• Strong instincts for audit preparedness, with experience building the documentation and processes that make audits smoother rather than scrambling when one arrives.
• Comfortable operating with ambiguity and determined to find the right path forward, where the “right answer” isn’t written down yet.
• Someone who wants to construct the tax function’s team, technology, and processes from the ground up, not just maintain what exists.
• Collaborative, with experience partnering closely with Product, Legal, and other departments to build solutions together rather than issuing top-down rulings.