Forward Deployed Accountant

Cranston AI; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Cranston AI in San Francisco is seeking a Forward Deployed Accountant to own the customer journey from contract to daily use. You will configure Cranston around firm workflows, train staff, and collaborate with product and engineering on edge cases in tax software.

The role blends implementation, accounting judgment, and product work, with opportunities to lead onboarding for large CPA firms and to create scalable playbooks and training materials.

Qualifications

• 3+ years in public accounting, firm operations, client accounting services, tax, audit, or a closely related role.
• Understand how accounting firms operate and speak credibly with a partner, a preparer, and an operations lead.
• Can teach. You explain a new workflow plainly, notice when someone is lost, and adjust without making them feel behind.
• Comfortable getting into the details of a return, close, reconciliation, document request, or review process.
• Keep projects moving. Customers trust your follow-through, and teammates know you will surface a problem early.
• Experience with accounting software like CCH Axcess, Drake, Lacerte, QuickBooks is useful.

Responsibilities

• Own onboarding for new accounting-firm customers, from discovery and configuration through launch and adoption.
• Map each firm's tax, bookkeeping, document, review, and client-service workflows in enough detail to make Cranston useful in real work.
• Lead live training for partners, managers, preparers, bookkeepers, and administrative staff.
• Set clear rollout plans, define success measures, and keep customers moving when schedules get busy.
• Work inside the product with customers. Diagnose issues, find practical workarounds, and stay on the problem until the workflow is reliable.
• Turn repeatable lessons into implementation playbooks, training materials, product changes, and better defaults.
• Represent the accounting user's point of view in product decisions. Be specific about what firms need, what creates risk, and what saves time.
• Build trusted relationships that lead to deeper adoption, renewals, referrals, and expansion.
• Travel to customer offices and accounting-industry events when being in the room will make the work better.

Skills

Public accounting knowledge

Communication

Training & teaching

Process improvement

Software enthusiasm

Education

CPA license or in progress

Tools

CCH Axcess

Drake

Lacerte

QuickBooks

Job description

ABOUT CRANSTON

Cranston builds AI that does tax and accounting work for CPA firms, inside the software those firms already use. Accounting firms use Cranston today for tax preparation, bookkeeping, document collection, review, and client work.

We're a small team in San Francisco. Dozens of firms already use the product, and demand is growing quickly. We need someone who understands the work to make every new customer successful.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a Forward Deployed Accountant, you will own the customer journey from signed contract through confident daily use. The role combines implementation, training, accounting judgment, and product work.

You will sit with firm owners and their teams, learn how work moves through the firm, configure Cranston around that process, and train people to use it well. During tax season or month-end close, you will see where a workflow holds up and where it falls apart. You will fix the immediate problem with the customer, then work with our product and engineering team so the next firm has a better experience.

The work is hands-on. One day you might lead a kickoff for a 40-person CPA firm. The next, you could review a tax package, rebuild a training plan, record a short walkthrough, or work with an engineer on an edge case in tax software.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Own onboarding for new accounting-firm customers, from discovery and configuration through launch and adoption.
• Map each firm's tax, bookkeeping, document, review, and client-service workflows in enough detail to make Cranston useful in real work.
• Lead live training for partners, managers, preparers, bookkeepers, and administrative staff.
• Set clear rollout plans, define success measures, and keep customers moving when schedules get busy.
• Work inside the product with customers. Diagnose issues, find practical workarounds, and stay on the problem until the workflow is reliable.
• Turn repeatable lessons into implementation playbooks, training materials, product changes, and better defaults.
• Represent the accounting user's point of view in product decisions. Be specific about what firms need, what creates risk, and what saves time.
• Build trusted relationships that lead to deeper adoption, renewals, referrals, and expansion.
• Travel to customer offices and accounting-industry events when being in the room will make the work better.

YOUR FIRST 90 DAYS

• Learn Cranston deeply enough to run a customer workflow yourself, from source documents through review and delivery.
• Shadow current onboarding work, then take ownership of new firm launches.
• Build a practical training program for the roles that use Cranston day to day.
• Create a clear feedback loop between customers and the product team, with examples that engineers can reproduce.
• Help several firms reach confident, repeatable use of Cranston in live client work.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• You have 3+ years in public accounting, firm operations, client accounting services, tax, audit, or a closely related role.
• You understand how accounting firms operate and can speak credibly with a partner, a preparer, and an operations lead.
• You can teach. You explain a new workflow plainly, notice when someone is lost, and adjust without making them feel behind.
• You are comfortable getting into the details of a return, close, reconciliation, document request, or review process.
• You keep projects moving. Customers trust your follow-through, and teammates know you will surface a problem early.
• You like working with software and can learn unfamiliar systems quickly. Experience with tools such as CCH Axcess, Drake, Lacerte, QuickBooks, or common practice-management systems is useful.
• You can travel (rarely) when customer work calls for it.

BONUS POINTS

• CPA license or progress toward one.
• Experience implementing accounting or tax software.
• Experience leading internal training, change management, or process improvement inside a firm.
• Experience at an early-stage company or in a role where you built the playbook while doing the work.