Senior Expert Tax

The opportunity

Tax advisory in the mid-market only works if someone has the technical depth that makes even complex cases manageable. In most firms this depth is tied to individual people and nowhere documented as a method.

Vogel acquires independent advisory firms and develops them into the strongest name in their region. Several thousand mid-sized companies entrust us with their tax, commercial and strategic issues. Tax advisory is not one business area among many here, but the core. The path upward at ours runs through two equal tracks, technical depth and people management, and this role is the technical one.

You carry the most complex mandates in the division and are the technical point of contact for your line: escalation endpoint, sparring partner, method provider, without people management. You report to the Tax division head and work closely with the management board on the most technically demanding topics.

What you are responsible for

Technical depth and specialist area

• Carry the most complex mandates and special topics in the division: tax audits, reorganisations, structuring advice, international structures.

• Develop your specialist area into visible depth for the division, the subject matter for which clients and multipliers know Vogel by name.

• Follow case law and legislation in your field independently and make the consequences for our clients tangible.

Point of contact and methodology

• Be the technical escalation endpoint of the tax line for complex cases and contested valuations.

• Develop methods, templates and technical standards that other professionals use. Your benchmark: the line improves as a whole, not just your own mandates.

• Enable associates and colleagues to expert level through sparring, review and onboarding into your topics.

Clients and visibility

• Be the direct contact for the most technically demanding clients, on equal footing and with genuine depth.

• Make your specialist area visible externally, through lectures, publications and client formats, and help build the technical reputation of the division.

• Work across the Vogel divisions where your area connects: structuring, preparation of transactions, financial management.

Questions you will find the answer to

• Which of your methods can be written down so that another professional applies them reliably, and which cannot?

• Where does defensible structuring end, and how do you explain that limit to an entrepreneur who wants more?

• What can AI already support in your field today, and where is its use negligent?

How we measure success

• After 6 months: You independently carry the most complex mandates in the division and are the point of contact for your line. You have fully completed your first special topics, shared your first methods, and your specialist area is firmly anchored internally.

• After 12 months: Your specialist area attracts mandates that seek exactly this depth, with first external visibility. You have enabled other professionals and set technical standards.

• After 24 months: The division's methods and standards carry your signature, and you are the technical authority in your field, internally and for external multipliers.

• Where it leads: to firm-wide technical authority in your field, equal to the Director level on the management track. This is the IC career, decided by a specialisation that is visible inside and outside the firm, not by years of service.

What you bring

• You have passed the tax advisor examination and have since carried client responsibility with technical depth for several years.

• You have built a clearly recognisable specialist area, for example reorganisations, international structures, succession or partnerships.

• You have realised that your drive is technical depth rather than people management, and you see this path as equal.

• You communicate with technical precision and at the same time clearly, in client discussions as in technical articles.

• You work with AI as a matter-of-course tool for research, drafting and analysis, and thereby leverage the depth of your work.

• You share knowledge rather than guarding it, and set the highest standard in everything, because mediocrity is not an option for you.

A plus, not a requirement

• An external track record in your field: lectures, publications, a specialist adviser title.

• A doctorate, if combined with practice.

• No conventional CV needed: professionals from a tax boutique with a mid-market wavelength, tax experts from the transaction environment who want to build their own technical line rather than manage. We assess on contribution, not on label; the stated range refers to the primary profile, and a different background starts at a different market rate and converges to the role level after twelve months of proven performance.

What this role is, and what it is not

• Equal, not a second league. Senior Expert is equal to Senior Manager: same remuneration, same influence on strategic topics, same visibility.

• Depth, not people responsibility. You define yourself through technical impact, not through a span of control you do not want.

• Specialisation, not routine mandates. We build topic depth. Anyone who only wants to administer is not right here.

Why Vogel

• Your depth gets reach. What you document as a method, professionals across several locations apply. In a pyramid, the same work stays at your desk.

• The drudgery is taken off you by the system. We automate the declaratory work itself, and our own annual financial statements prepared with AI are the proof.

• You want to decide: your technical position is yours, no committee waters it down. Vogel is hierarchical in decisions, flat in communication, autonomous in execution. Performance is celebrated, not hidden.

• Substance behind you. A profitable, growing company with established clients. The difficult cases are handled in-house, not by a third party.

1. What is Vogel - and where do you work?

Vogel is one of Germany's leading mid-market advisory firms - since 1959, owner-managed in the second generation, with its own capital - and is building from this the leading advisory platform for the mid-market. We work at three locations: Aalen as the established headquarters, Bopfingen at the core of the business, and Munich as a new hub. At all three we are recruiting across functions - from tax advisory and consulting to the teams that build the foundation beneath them.

2. How are the salary bands to be understood?

Deliberately broad - and stated at every position before you apply. We differentiate by track record and market value, not by qualification: scarce, highly sought-after profiles at the upper end, less scarce ones at the lower end. The stated range is not a negotiating margin but a profile scale - two people with similar experience can earn different amounts at ours. What determines the upper end is maturity, not the number of years in the profession and not negotiating skill.

3. How much, and how, is worked at Vogel?

Performance is measured by what you move, not by hours. Honestly, though, if you are looking for 9-to-5, we are not the first address for you. We seek people who work intensively out of their own drive, because the tasks are worth it. How you distribute your time is largely up to you. What we do share: we work on-site together and normally see each other in the office every day - culture, sparring and the best ideas arise from daily proximity. We are not a remote company and do not have extensive home-office policies; individual remote days are no problem.

4. How does the application process work?

Lean, fast, transparent - and staged by profile. As a rule there are four steps: a written task in which you take a position on eight questions - AI is expressly permitted, we only ask for a brief self-declaration about it; a thirty-minute conversation; a joint working session on a real problem from our daily work; and an on-site meeting with the team and a shared meal. How many steps there actually are depends on the role: for internships and working students the on-site meeting is dropped, for student jobs one conversation is enough, and for senior roles a joint afternoon of work is added. In advance you can book a ten-minute call in which only you ask questions. As a rule you hear from us within 48 hours after each step.

5. How does variable pay work?

Linked to performance quarterly, assessed qualitatively. The scale rises with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. The expected value for good performance - you meet the requirements, set your own emphasis, pass the Keeper Test - is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is an holistic assessment by your line manager against six criteria: Impact, Judgement, Communication, Execution, Growth and Values.

6. How do I develop - what career paths are there?

Two active paths: the IC career (technical depth, expert track) through the levels Expert, Senior, Lead and Principal - and the management career (leadership, people responsibility) through Manager, Senior Manager, Director and VP. Both are paid equally, and neither has to lead upward: if you stay at one level and keep going deeper there, that is just as right with us. You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3. Entering the profession is not a special route but the early part of the same path - from working student or intern to Associate, for the best without a new application process.

7. Team, culture, holidays?

The shared lunch is the daily anchor point - whoever is in the office eats along; expected, not monitored. Dinner is the same offer without any expectation. Both at no personal cost. In addition, social events and offsites at a regular rhythm - not as compulsory programme, but because a good team also shares time away from work.

Benefits are not the icing on the cake with us, but what makes intensity sustainable over years: exam support with a 25,000 EUR qualification budget and three months' release, 100% coverage of childcare costs, EGYM Wellpass, company pension scheme, job ticket with 90% subsidy, home office equipment and a device of your choice from our catalogue, one book a month from the Vogel canon - and AI tools without token limits and without a budget cap. Holiday: 28 days.