--- title: 'SOX Audit Expert at Nace AI' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/sox-audit-expert-nace-ai-palo-alto-3tznenh4xa5w' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # SOX Audit Expert at Nace AI - **Company:** Nace AI - **Location:** Palo Alto, CA - **Employment:** contract - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-03-27 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/nace.ai/4a3a7ab4-0a86-49a4-aa80-8df4b9f2ab3d ## Job description Engagement: 2 weeks · 8 hours/week Compensation: Competitive hourly rate The Opportunity We are building an AI-native platform for SOX control testing — one where an AI agent reads an audit workpaper, classifies every sheet, extracts sample rows, identifies exceptions, and generates PCAOB-defensible narratives. Automatically. The engineering is working. What it needs now is an expert who can tell us when it's right and when it only looks right. This is not a training role. This is not a data labeling role. This is the role where a seasoned auditor looks at what the AI produced, applies the kind of judgment that comes from years of real engagements, and tells us exactly where professional standards would push back — and why. Your input directly shapes how AI handles SOX compliance for public companies. That influence starts on day one. ## What You Will Actually Do Review AI-generated workpaper interpretations against real audit standards. The system parses uploaded Excel workpapers and makes decisions: which tab is the testing table, which rows are samples, which variance is an exception. You will tell us when those decisions are audit-defensible and when they are not. Define ground truth across control types. Reconciliation controls, management review controls, IT access reviews, three-way match, segregation of duties — each behaves differently. You will tell us what a correct result looks like for each, and provide real workpaper examples where possible. Challenge the AI's exception logic. When the system flags a variance as an exception, is it? When it concludes a control is effective with limited samples tested, should it? You provide the professional judgment the engineering team cannot. Shape the product roadmap. You will identify gaps between what auditors actually need and what the system currently produces. Those gaps become the next build cycle. Who This Is For You have 5+ years of hands-on SOX audit experience, including direct workpaper preparation and review — not just oversight. You know what a PCAOB reviewer looks for because you have been in that room. You came up through a Big 4 or equivalent top-tier firm (EY, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, or a national practice with equivalent SOX depth). You hold a CPA and have worked across multiple clients and control environments, not just one industry. You are intellectually curious about what AI gets wrong — not defensive about it. You see the potential for AI in audit and want to be part of getting it right from the beginning, before the standards catch up. ## Minimum Qualifications - 5+ years SOX compliance and financial audit experience, hands-on - Big 4 or equivalent top-tier firm background required - Deep working knowledge of PCAOB standards and COSO framework - CPA certification required - Experience spanning multiple control types, not single-domain ## Preferred - Experience leading SOX workstreams for mid-to-large cap public companies - Former senior associate or manager level — you reviewed others' workpapers - Exposure to control testing automation or GRC tools - Intellectual interest in where AI belongs — and doesn't belong — in regulated workflows ## About Nace AI ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Nace AI builds long-horizon reasoning models and AI agents that audit, reconcile, and report on financial and compliance data for enterprises. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed / Series A – $21.5M raised in 2026) - **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States - **Founded**: 2024 - **Founders**: Zhanibek Datbayev (CTO/Co-Founder), Ritesh Shrivastava (Co-Founder), Sudha Valluru (COO/Co-Founder), Swathi B (Co-Founder), and others ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: Audit, Compliance, Finance, Accounting, Enterprise AI - **Target customers**: B2B enterprise – specifically audit firms, finance departments, compliance teams, and professional services firms - **Mission**: Build long-horizon AI that runs organizations; give professionals their time back by automating high-stakes knowledge work ## Products & Services - **Metamodel**: A specialized small language model (SLM) platform that enterprises can customize with their own policies and knowledge. Used for audit, contract governance, and financial reporting. - **Agentic Accounting**: AI agent that executes end-to-end financial audits, billing audits, and revenue leakage detection by connecting directly to databases. - **Nace Verification Intelligence**: Evidence-based reasoning engine that processes up to 1 million files (PDFs, spreadsheets, databases) to automate SOX 404 reports, contract compliance checks, and due diligence. - **Nace Process Automation**: Automatically maps transaction flows across 10+ disparate databases to visualize and reconcile processes. - **The Macros**: A research preview product that lets power users create custom AI macros for repetitive professional tasks. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $21.5M (May 2026 round led by Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from General Catalyst, AME Cloud Ventures, AICONIC VENTURES); earlier $5M seed round (April 2025) led by General Catalyst. - **Notable Investors/Partners**: General Catalyst, Walden Catalyst Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, AICONIC VENTURES - **Growth Signals**: - Launched from stealth in March 2025 with Metamodel 1 - Raised $21.5M within 14 months of founding - Operations in 7 countries (US, Kazakhstan, India, Canada, Germany, Ukraine, Georgia) - 2,574 LinkedIn followers (+141% YoY) - Active job postings for senior roles (Product Manager, Audit Consultant, Growth Lead) ## Competitive Advantages - **Metamodel approach**: Enterprises can turn internal policies and employee knowledge into custom, on‑premise AI models, enforcing consistency and accuracy. - **Evidence‑based reasoning**: The system explains exactly where it looked and why – building trust in regulated environments (SOC 2 Type II, AICPA audited infrastructure). - **Small model efficiency**: Uses specialized small language models (SLMs) instead of massive general LLMs, making deployments faster, cheaper, and compliant with data sovereignty requirements. - **End‑to‑end automation**: Covers the entire audit workflow – from raw database ingestion to boardroom‑ready reports – without any manual spreadsheet work. ## Strategic Focus - **Scale the Metamodel platform**: Turn enterprise policies into custom AI agents for every department. - **Expand into adjacent compliance verticals** (tax, due diligence, contract governance). - **Grow the team** across engineering, product, and go‑to‑market roles (currently 39–50 employees, with a heavy technical tilt of ~45%). - **Maintain on‑premises / hybrid cloud deployments** to meet strict regulatory requirements of audit and finance clients. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Fast‑paced research‑first environment assembling a “world‑class team” to solve high‑stakes scaling challenges in AI reasoning. - **Work model**: Hybrid workspace (Palo Alto offices); many roles are in‑office for close collaboration on complex ML and product work. - **Team composition**: Heavy technical concentration (45% of staff are engineers/researchers), with deep domain expertise from ex‑Dropbox, Bloomberg, McKinsey, and AI labs. - **Impact**: Build infrastructure that gives audit, compliance, and finance professionals their time back – directly reduces manual drudgery in multi‑billion‑dollar compliance markets. - **Perks**: Not explicitly detailed, but the company emphasizes “autonomy, impact, and working on the hardest AI problems in enterprise.” ## Sources 1. [nace.ai](https://nace.ai/) 2. [nace.ai/careers](https://nace.ai/careers) 3. [LinkedIn – Nace AI](https://www.linkedin.com/company/nace-ai) 4. [Built In – Nace.AI](https://builtin.com/company/nace-ai) 5. [Jobs.ashbyhq.com – Nace AI](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/nace.ai) ## Other roles at Nace AI - [VP of Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/vp-of-engineering-nace-ai-palo-alto-q8d26ckgppqq) — Palo Alto, CA - [Technical Program Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-program-manager-nace-ai-palo-alto-8py4nbage3rw) — Palo Alto, CA - [Senior MLOps Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-mlops-engineer-nace-ai-palo-alto-x8adzytpzn63) — Palo Alto, CA - [Senior Product Designer (AI & Prototyping)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-designer-ai-prototyping-nace-ai-palo-alto-g533v3r04kqy) — Palo Alto, CA - [Financial Audit Consultant](https://feeny.ai/job/financial-audit-consultant-nace-ai-palo-alto-xd0vjpcf326t) — Palo Alto, CA - [Senior Technical Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-recruiter-nace-ai-palo-alto-w9tkfpeqqv2f) — Palo Alto, CA - [Growth Marketing Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/growth-marketing-lead-nace-ai-palo-alto-7bw1bwfdqydv) — Palo Alto, CA - [Valuation Due Diligence Expert](https://feeny.ai/job/valuation-due-diligence-expert-nace-ai-palo-alto-c51g3m2xy7q0) — Palo Alto, CA - [Senior Product Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-manager-nace-ai-palo-alto-vsa8p0mak591) — Palo Alto, CA - [Tax Consultant](https://feeny.ai/job/tax-consultant-nace-ai-palo-alto-hryt0rr498zw) — Palo Alto, CA