Accountant – Automation & Systems

Job Description

Staff Accountant | Masterworks

The Tone:
This is a full-time role at Masterworks, located in New York, NY. Masterworks operates a fintech platform enabling investment in SEC-qualified shares of multi-million dollar paintings by artists like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso, having securitized over $1.5 billion in artworks since 2019. This Staff Accountant position is crucial for maintaining and scaling the financial operations of hundreds of art investment vehicles and corporate entities. The role is designed for an accountant who leverages code, AI, and automation to build efficient systems, rather than relying on traditional accounting methods, making a single person’s work equivalent to that of several through intelligent design.

The TL;DR
• Role: Early Career
• Type: Full-time
• Location: In-person, New York, NY
• Pay: $70000–$95000 yearly
• Team: Reports to Sr Accounting Manager
• Mission: Keep our financial engine running smoothly across hundreds of art investment vehicles and our corporate entities.
• Tech Stack: Google Sheets, Excel, Python, AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, agentic workflows), GitHub, SQL, databases, APIs, Alteryx, GH Actions, Zapier

What You’ll Actually Do
• Financial Operations: Keep the financial engine running smoothly across hundreds of art investment vehicles and corporate entities, ensuring precision.
• Close Management: Execute monthly, quarterly, and annual financial closes with precision, including accurate reconciliations, clean entries, and meeting deadlines.
• SEC Reporting: Lead the preparation of SEC annual and semi-annual reports, specifically 1-K and 1-SA formats, to meet regulatory standards.
• Investor Payments: Own and manage pay-in/pay-out reconciliations along with the supporting files required for investor payment runs.
• System Automation: Maintain, extend, and continuously improve the existing accountant-developer hybrid systems, which include scripts, workflows, data pipelines, and AI agents, actively seeking out and eliminating manual, fragile steps through automation and documentation.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Bachelor’s degree in Accounting or an equivalent academic background.
• Experience: 1–3 years of accounting experience, gained in either public or private settings, encompassing close work, reconciliations, and financial statement preparation. Crucially, candidates must provide demonstrable evidence of having built a script, automation, workflow, or repository that resulted in tangible time savings.
• Skills: Strong foundational knowledge of accounting principles, debits, credits, and financial statement preparation, including SEC-grade output standards. Proficiency in technical systems, including APIs, databases, and SQL for querying data at the source. Demonstrable fluency in using AI tools programmatically for creating working code and automating tasks. Exceptional detail orientation and discipline to meet strict close calendar deadlines.
• Bonus: Interest in pursuing CPA certification; experience with investment-entity accounting; exposure to SEC reporting in 1-K, 1-SA, or 10-K/Q formats; formal coding coursework, bootcamp participation, or a self-taught portfolio.