Senior Accountant | Climate Tech & Energy Transition Startups (US)

Planetary Scale; United States; Remote; USD 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Performance bonus

Client equity exposure

30 days PTO

Job summary

Planetary Scale is hiring a Senior Accountant to service a portfolio of climate-tech ventures, acting as their strategic finance arm. You will own month-end close across multiple client companies, ensuring accuracy and timely reporting.

The role requires hands-on work in QuickBooks Online or Xero and coordination with founders and engagement leads. You will handle payables, receivables, payroll and tax-related tasks, support audits and diligence, and help scale finance operations across a

Qualifications

• Experience with US GAAP and month-end close processes.
• CPA or equivalent qualification required; Big Four or leading national/ regional firm experience preferred.
• Hands-on accounting with QuickBooks Online or Xero; comfortable with payroll, tax filings and audits.

Responsibilities

• Own month-end close for multiple client companies with reconciliations, accruals and financial statements.
• Manage payables, receivables, payroll, and related filings for client companies.
• Support audits, investor diligence, and work with tax preparers at year-end.

Skills

US GAAP

CPA

Attention to detail

Strong communication

Teamwork

Education

CPA or equivalent

Tools

QuickBooks Online

Xero

Bill.com

Brex

Job description

• Role: Accounting and finance ops for a portfolio of venture-backed climate tech companies.
• Preferred experience: 4–10 years, including time at a leading national or regional accounting firm
• Location: Remote — US (working hours in Pacific, Mountain, Central or Eastern time zone)
• Compensation: US$80,000-100,000 per year + bonus
• Expected start: Dec '26 or Jan '27

Overview

Planetary Scale partners with climate and energy-transition companies as their strategic finance arm, working alongside founders from seed through growth. We help them refine their business model, raise venture funding, manage their finances and get through the hardest moments on the path to scale.

For many of these companies, we also maintain their books, prepare financial reports, and handle day-to-day finance work like paying bills, invoicing customers and running payroll. Founders rely on us to get the numbers right and make sure everyone gets paid on time. That side of our work is growing, and we're hiring a Senior Accountant to take on a group of clients and work closely with the rest of our team to provide world-class finance function support.

The Role

You'll run the accounting and day-to-day finance work for several client companies at once, alongside a peer accountant who looks after a separate set of clients. For each company, you'll work with our engagement lead who owns the relationship, and often with the founder and their team directly. Our clients primarily use QuickBooks Online or Xero, plus bank, bill-pay and payroll tools. We also have a set of internally developed tools to make the monthly close process flow smoothly and help to share context across our accounting and strategic finance work.

You'll be in real client work from your first week, paired with experienced teammates while you learn each company's financial picture and the nuances of working with early-stage companies that are commercializing complex new technologies.

• You'll own the month-end close for each of your companies: reconciliations, accruals, prepaid and fixed-asset schedules, and financial statements you've reviewed yourself before they reach the engagement lead and the founder.
• Where a company relies on us for its payables and receivables, you'll run them, including bill-pay runs in tools like Bill.com and Brex, as well as invoicing and collections, so vendors are paid on time and cash comes in when it should.
• For some clients, you'll also run payroll and take care of occasional filings like Delaware Franchise Tax, state sales tax returns or year-end 1099s.
• You will figure out and apply the correct accounting treatment for various revenue recognition scenarios, government grants, venture debt and multi-currency transfer pricing. You'll need good judgement on when to ask others for help.
• You'll support audits and investor diligence, preparing schedules and answering auditors' and investors' questions so the founder can focus on running the company. At year end, you'll prepare each company's package for its outside tax preparer.
• You'll help make our close faster and more consistent across clients, noticing where a checklist, template or automation would save the team time.

About You

You hold yourself to a high standard — and you want to work somewhere that does the same. A few things that matter here:

• Accuracy is your baseline. Founders, their boards and their investors make decisions from the numbers you close, and a wrong one can undermine a founder's credibility at the worst possible moment. You tie out every balance before you call a month closed, and you'd rather catch your own mistake than have a founder find it.
• You dig in, and you ask when you're not sure. When a balance won't reconcile or a transaction looks off, you trace it back to its source and find out why. If you're unsure how something should be treated, you ask before you book it.
• You're a good teammate. You'll work alongside a peer accountant and each client's engagement lead. You keep them up to date, leave workpapers anyone could follow, and help out when someone else is stretched.
• You aspire to be great at what you do. You put in the time to sharpen your technical skills, including the less common topics our clients run into, like grants and venture debt. When part of the close is slow or easy to get wrong, you build a better way of doing it.
• You take ownership before you're asked. When something needs doing, you do it. If you see the wrong info being communicated, you jump in to fix it before it becomes a bigger issue. At a firm this size, if you assume something is someone else's job, it usually doesn't get done.

Beyond that, for this role specifically:

• You learned the craft at a leading accounting firm. You've spent time at a Big Four or leading national or regional accounting firm, in audit, assurance or client accounting, and you've since owned a close from start to finish. You know US GAAP well enough to handle accruals, fixed assets and revenue recognition with confidence, and you're hands‑on in QuickBooks Online or Xero.
• You're a CPA, or hold your country's equivalent qualification. It's what we generally expect. If you don't hold one yet but you're exceptional in every other way, we'd still like to hear from you.
• You communicate clearly in English and work US hours. Our clients and most of our team are in the US, so professional written and spoken English is a must, and so are working hours that overlap fully with at least one US time zone.
• You care about this work specifically. Climate and the energy transition matter to you, and you want your accounting to support the companies building a better future.

It helps a lot if you've also worked inside a venture- or private-equity-backed company, or at an outsourced accounting firm that serves them. Beyond that, experience with sales tax, payroll or year-end tax work, or with a company's first audit, is a plus.

What makes this different

• Working directly with founders. You'll work with people building some of the most consequential companies in climate and energy — exposure and ownership that typically takes far longer to reach at a larger firm.
• A steep curve and a supportive team. Hands‑on work alongside experienced team members, frequent and direct feedback, and real client exposure from day one. We hold a high bar and invest seriously in getting you there.
• Something new every week. We work with a diverse set of high growth companies bringing novel technologies to market. You will learn about many different markets, verticals and business models and get exposure to a wide range of interesting accounting and finance topics.

We're fully remote with team members in the US, Colombia, Poland and the Philippines. Our offer includes performance bonus, client equity exposure and 30 days of PTO.

EEO

Planetary Scale is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate candidates on their merits and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds.