--- title: 'Controller at Liquid AI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/controller-liquid-ai-san-francisco-k2rh6jk06zz6' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-13' --- # Controller at Liquid AI - **Company:** Liquid AI - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** hybrid - **Posted:** 2026-10-08 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-13 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/liquid-ai/6418faf7-b6f2-4780-8d5b-b92e3f1d3716 ## Job description Controller ## About Liquid AI Spun out of MIT CSAIL, we build general-purpose AI systems that run efficiently across deployment targets, from data center accelerators to on-device hardware, ensuring low latency, minimal memory usage, privacy, and reliability. We partner with enterprises across consumer electronics, automotive, life sciences, and financial services. We are scaling rapidly and need exceptional people to help us get there. The Opportunity As a unicorn-stage company, we're building the accounting infrastructure that will support us through our next stage of growth — larger financing events, an expanding audit scope, and eventually the rigor of a public company. This role is the technical and operational backbone of that effort: owning the close, setting our accounting policy positions, and building the controls environment from the ground up. This is not a maintenance role; it's an opportunity to architect the systems and processes a much larger company will run on. ## What We're Looking For We need someone who: - Has deep technical accounting judgment: Comfortable taking positions on complex revenue recognition (ASC 606) and equity compensation (ASC 718) matters, and can document and defend them. - Builds infrastructure, not just reports: Excited to design controls, close processes, and systems from a lean starting point rather than inherit something fully built out. - Is audit- and controls-minded: Has driven external audits and built SOX-ready processes, even before SOX was required. - Is systems-fluent: Has stood up or significantly improved an ERP (e.g., NetSuite) and the integrations around it. - Thrives in ambiguity: Prefers building the playbook to following one, and can move at the speed of an AI company. The Work In this role, you will: - Own the Close: Run the monthly and quarterly close process end-to-end, delivering accurate, well-documented, and increasingly timely financials. - Set Technical Accounting Positions: Research and memo complex areas — revenue recognition under ASC 606, equity compensation under ASC 718, and other non-standard transactions — and ensure consistent application. - Own Equity Compensation Accounting: Manage stock compensation expense, 409A coordination, and cap table reconciliation, partnering closely with FP&A and Legal. - Architect Controls: Design and implement internal controls that scale with the company, building toward audit and SOX readiness ahead of when it's required. - Own the Tax Process: Manage our outsourced tax vendor relationship end-to-end, covering both income tax and sales & use tax compliance, and ensure tax positions are properly reflected in the books. - Lead the Annual Audit: Own the external audit relationship end-to-end — PBC lists, testing support, and timely resolution of open items. - Drive Systems & Automation: Evaluate, implement, and optimize ERP and adjacent finance systems, and automate manual accounting workflows as the company scales. - Partner Cross-Functionally: Work closely with FP&A, Legal, and GTM Finance to ensure deal terms, equity grants, and revenue contracts are reflected correctly in the books. Desired Experience - Sustained Track Record: 12+ years of progressive accounting experience, spanning public accounting (Big 4 or equivalent) and industry, ideally including time at a high-growth or pre-IPO technology company. - CPA: Active CPA required or strongly preferred. - Technical Depth: Strong working knowledge of US GAAP, with particular depth in revenue recognition (ASC 606) and stock-based compensation (ASC 718). - Audit & Controls Experience: Has managed external auditors directly and built or matured a controls environment (SOX experience a plus, even if not previously mandated). - Systems Experience: Has implemented or owned an ERP system (NetSuite or similar) and the integrations connecting it to other finance tools. - Communication: Comfortable presenting technical accounting positions and close results to the CFO, board, and audit committee. ## About Liquid AI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Liquid AI builds efficiency-first, general-purpose foundation models designed to run on-device and at the edge, delivering state-of-the-art performance with minimal compute. - **Entity Type**: Private (Series A) - **Headquarters**: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States - **Founded**: 2023 - **Founders**: Ramin Hasani (CEO), Mathias Lechner (CTO), Alexander Amini (CSO), Daniela Rus ## Core Business - **Primary Industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Foundation Models - **Target Customers**: B2B; Enterprise (e.g., automotive, finance, defense, e-commerce, biotech); developers building on-device or edge AI applications. - **Mission**: To build efficient general-purpose AI at every scale — highly capable, compute-optimized, and ready to run on any device. ## Products & Services - **Liquid Foundation Models (LFMs)**: A new generation of generative AI models optimized for on-device and edge deployment. They achieve state-of-the-art performance with a smaller memory footprint and more efficient inference than traditional transformers. Models range from 230M to 24B parameters, including specialized variants for vision (VL), multilingual search (Retrievers), and mixture-of-experts (MoE). - **Liquid Edge AI Platform (LEAP)**: A full-stack SDK for fine-tuning, baking, and deploying LFMs to production. Supports runtimes like llama.cpp, MLX, ONNX, CoreML, SGLang, and vLLM, enabling rapid customization and deployment. - **Research & White-Box Models**: The company publishes its research on liquid neural networks and state-space models in the open, emphasizing explainable, traceable AI over black-box approaches. ## Market Standing - **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: - **Total Funding**: $293.2M - **Annual Revenue**: $34.5K (early-stage; likely pre-revenue or nominal) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: AMD Ventures (led Series A), OSS Capital, Stephen Pagliuca; partners include Mercedes-Benz (in-car intelligence), Insilico Medicine (drug discovery), and hardware/infrastructure providers. - **Growth Signals**: - Headcount of ~91 employees (as of mid-2026), with 8% monthly growth. - Active job postings: 18 (quarterly growth of +63.6%). - Rapid international expansion: operates in 12 countries including Japan, Germany, Spain, and France. - Recent product launch: LFM2.5 series (June 2026) — next-gen on-device models. - Strong talent pipeline: hires from MIT CSAIL, Stanford, Amazon, Meta, and Citadel. ## Competitive Advantages - **Efficiency-First Architecture**: LFMs are designed from the ground up for compute- and cost-optimized inference, enabling deployment on phones, laptops, cars, and other edge devices where traditional LLMs are too large or slow. - **White-Box Explainability**: The company prioritizes transparent, inspectable models over black-box systems — a key differentiator for regulated industries. - **Rapid Customization**: The LEAP SDK allows clients to fine-tune and deploy specialized models in minutes, not weeks. - **Strong Academic Roots**: Spun out of MIT CSAIL with a founding team of world-class researchers in liquid neural networks and state-space models. ## Strategic Focus - **On-Device & Edge AI**: Primary growth vector is bringing advanced intelligence to processors outside data centers (automotive, mobile, IoT, defense). - **Enterprise Partnerships**: Deepening collaborations with Mercedes-Benz (automotive) and Insilico Medicine (biotech) to embed LFMs into real-world products. - **International Expansion**: Building out teams in Japan, Europe, and beyond to capture global demand for localized, on-device AI. - **Model Line Expansion**: Continuously releasing new model sizes and modalities (vision, retrieval, MoE) to cover a broader range of use cases. ## Why Work Here - **Mission-Driven & High-Impact**: Work on frontier AI research and products that directly shape how intelligence is deployed in the physical world. - **Culture of Ownership**: “Leadership sets the destination, but the route is yours to discover and deliver” — high autonomy and trust, with a focus on building over process. - **Transparent & Meritocratic**: Decisions are documented and traceable; ideas are valued based on evidence, not hierarchy. - **Global & Diverse Team**: 91 employees across 12 countries; 30% in technical roles, 9% in research. Offices in Cambridge, MA (HQ) and satellite hubs in Japan and Europe. - **Perks & Environment**: - Hybrid/office policy (Cambridge HQ with multiple local offices). - Strong emphasis on employee wellbeing: “the company prioritizes the needs and wellbeing of its people.” - Continuous learning culture: “everyone is expected to continuously fine-tune their skills.” - **Recent Open Roles (as of mid-2026)**: ML Research Engineer, Applied ML (RecSys, Vision, Post-Training), Distributed Training Engineer, Solutions Architect, Founding Account Executive, Finance Manager. ## Sources 1. [Liquid AI Official Company Page](https://www.liquid.ai/company) 2. [Liquid AI Official Homepage](https://www.liquid.ai/) 3. [Liquid AI Careers Page](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/liquid-ai) 4. [Liquid AI LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/liquid-ai-inc) 5. [Liquid AI About Page](https://www.liquid.ai/company/about) ## Other roles at Liquid AI - [Developer Relations](https://feeny.ai/job/developer-relations-liquid-ai-san-francisco-cxa12bxjfrdn) — San Francisco, CA - [Strategic Business Development, Life Sciences](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-business-development-life-sciences-liquid-ai-boston-abmzewrv1rne) — Boston, MA - [Strategic Business Development](https://feeny.ai/job/strategic-business-development-liquid-ai-san-francisco-xb9vz7j1b4v8) — San Francisco, CA - [Member of Go-to-Market Staff](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-go-to-market-staff-liquid-ai-north-america-l-san-francisco-boston-3h9m36kbxe17) — North America L San Francisco Boston, OR - [Executive Assistant & Boston Office Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/executive-assistant-boston-office-manager-liquid-ai-boston-w7qpd15rv7be) — Boston, MA - [Associate General Counsel, Product & Regulatory](https://feeny.ai/job/associate-general-counsel-product-regulatory-liquid-ai-san-francisco-cv1mmvgze9a6) — San Francisco, CA - [Member of Technical Staff - Inference Systems](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-inference-systems-liquid-ai-boston-n21ddyv32pqs) — Boston, MA - [Member of Technical Staff - ML Scientist, Japanese Multimodal](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-ml-scientist-japanese-multimodal-liquid-ai-tokyo-b1sxex046dg8) — Tokyo, Japan - [Member of Technical Staff - Applied ML, Japanese Multimodal](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-applied-ml-japanese-multimodal-liquid-ai-tokyo-hv79bwy6nmkk) — Tokyo, Japan - [Member of Technical Staff - GPU Infrastructure Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-gpu-infrastructure-engineer-liquid-ai-san-francisco-5qry0efpcqvv) — San Francisco, CA