Your Role

Vogel is building the leading consulting platform for the German mid-market — and tax consulting is its core, not just one business area among many. A platform of this size requires not only leaders who manage departments, but also technical authorities whose depth makes even the most complex cases solvable. Lead Expert Tax is precisely this role.

At Vogel, the path to the top leads through two equally valid avenues: Mastery for technical depth and Pioneer for disciplinary leadership. You have reached the pinnacle of the Mastery path. You are a tax advisor who has become a technical authority in a specialized field — transformations, international structures, succession planning, corporate tax law, or another demanding area — and you also project this externally: publications, lectures, a specialist advisor standing by which you are known. You are moving because you want to shape and build your field as a company-wide brand, rather than being an individual specialist stuck in someone else's structure.

You are the company-wide technical authority in your field: you handle the most complex cases for the group, shape the methods and standards beyond your own desk, and empower the professionals across the entire Tax line. All of this without disciplinary management responsibility — your impact stems from technical depth and methodology, not from a human resources apparatus. You work closely with management and department owners on the most technically demanding client and strategy topics.

Your Responsibility

Technical Authority

• Handle the group's most complex cases and special topics in your field — mandates where technical depth is crucial for success or risk.

• Be the company-wide escalation point of contact for your field — the person called for truly difficult questions.

• Keep Vogel up-to-date in your field with case law, legislation, and planning practices — and translate this into concrete client consequences.

Methodology & Empowerment

• Shape the company-wide technical standards and methods in your field — templates, checklists, consulting guidelines used by the entire Tax line.

• Empower Senior Experts and Experts across locations — sparring, training, technical leadership without a disciplinary line.

• Be a technical sparring partner for department owners and management on the most complex client and structural issues.

Brand & Market

• Promote your field as a Vogel strength externally — publications, lectures, technical formats — and make Vogel visible in the market for this depth.

• Personally engage with your field's strategically most important clients and win those who seek precisely this authority.

• Resolve demanding cross-sell topics where your field is the door opener (planning, M&A tax, international structures).

Your Prospects

What you will have delivered after 6 months:

• You are established company-wide as the technical authority in your field and handle the group's most complex cases.

• You have set the first company-wide methods or standards in your field.

• The strategically most important clients in your field are personally connected to you.

What you will have delivered after 12 months:

• Your field is visible externally as a Vogel strength — publications, lectures, mandates that explicitly come due to your authority.

• You have empowered Senior Experts and Experts company-wide; the technical line of your field bears your mark.

• Your technical position is recognizable internally and externally as a Vogel position.

What you will have delivered after 24 months:

• Your field is an independent contributor to the group's reputation and results.

• The group's methods and standards in your field are essentially yours.

• You are on the Principal/VP (Technical) path along our Career Framework.

Where the position is developing:

Beyond the Lead Expert level, the technical Principal/VP path opens up — company-wide technical leadership of a topic area, equivalent to the owner responsibility of the leadership track. Lead Expert Tax is a role with real technical weight: beyond cash compensation, it is envisioned that you will participate entrepreneurially in the added value created by your authority and your field.

What You Bring

Experience & Track Record

• You have passed the tax advisor examination and built a company-wide relevant technical authority in a specialized field.

• You have promoted your field externally — publications, lectures, specialist advisor titles, cited positions.

• You shape methods and standards beyond your own desk and empower other professionals.

• Profiles that do not fit this mold but bring real technical authority are explicitly invited — we evaluate by contribution, not by label. Specifically: habilitated/doctorate tax lawyers with practical standing; former Big4 partner candidates who prioritize technical impact over HR apparatus; renowned specialist authors with a desire for mandates. The indicated range calibrates to the primary profile — the logic behind it is in our compensation principles.

Skills & Work Style

• You have outstanding depth in a demanding specialized field — and remain operationally competent in ongoing client work.

• You make complex matters understandable — for clients, for colleagues, for the professional public.

• You use AI as an inherent lever and shape how your line uses AI in technical depth.

Mindset & Personality

• You understand technical impact as equivalent to leadership — your authority arises from depth and empowerment, not from positional power.

• You share knowledge and shape standards, rather than guarding your field.

• You strive to set the highest standard in everything you deliver — not because someone is checking, but because mediocrity personally bothers you.

• Vogel is hierarchical in decision-making, flat in communication, autonomous in execution. Performance is celebrated, not hidden.

What You Won't Find With Us

• No specialist track that is secretly second-rate. Lead Expert is equivalent to Director — same compensation, same influence, same visibility. A technical career is not a consolation prize here.

• No disciplinary management of a department as a reward for technical weight. You exert influence through methods, depth, and empowerment — not through an HR apparatus that you don't want.

• No specialist existence in someone else's structure. You shape your field as a Vogel brand, you are not a lone wolf hanging in a pyramid.

• No partnership with competing self-interests. We are a company with a one-firm logic — one brand, one culture, one hiring bar.

FAQ

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

Vogel is one of Germany's leading mid-market consultancies — a family business since 1959, from Aalen — and is building it into the leading consulting platform for the mid-market. We are growing at several locations: in Aalen/Ostwürttemberg as our established headquarters and in Munich as a new hub. At both, we are looking for people across functions — from tax consulting to consulting to the strategic teams building the platform.

2. How are the salary bands to be understood?

Intentionally broad — and clearly stated at each level. We differentiate by track record and market value, not by degree: scarce, highly sought-after profiles at the upper end, less scarce ones at the lower end. We calibrate exclusively on the market — two people with similar experience can earn differently with us.

3. How much — and how — do people work at Vogel?

We measure by what you achieve, not by hours. However, it's also true: those looking for 9-to-5 are not our first choice. We seek people who work intensely on their own initiative because the tasks are worth it. How you distribute your time is largely up to you. What we share: We work together in person — culture, sparring, and the best ideas emerge from daily proximity. We are not a remote company and do not have extensive home office policies; individual remote days are not a problem.

4. How does the application process work?

Lean, fast, transparent — and staggered by profile. For entry-level roles (internship, working student, career entry), usually two interviews and a short work sample are sufficient; experienced roles are a bit more extensive. For selected senior roles, we are exploring incorporating a joint working day in the future so that both sides can get to know each other better. It always applies: scheduled appointments, swift decisions, substantial feedback — regardless of the outcome.

5. How does variable compensation work?

Tied to performance quarterly, qualitatively assessed. The scale increases with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. The expected value with good performance — you meet the requirements, set your own accents, pass the keeper test — is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is on a holistic assessment by your manager: ownership, quality, learning curve, collaboration, impact.

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

Two active paths: Mastery (technical depth, expert career) and Pioneer (leadership, management). You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3. Career entry is not a separate path, but the early part of the same journey — from working student or intern to Associate, for the best without a new application process.

7. Team, culture, vacation?

A joint lunch is an open daily offer — not mandatory; whoever wants to join does, everyone can eat at any time. In addition, dinners, social events, and offsites at regular intervals — not as a mandatory program, but because a good team also shares time outside of work. Benefits: well-thought-out and substantial, not symbolic. Vacation: 28 days.

8. I know someone — is there a referral bonus?

Yes — €2,500 for each successfully filled position (no internships). A brief context is enough: who you are thinking of, for which role, why. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it must be substantial.

Compensation: €220,875 – €277,875 • Fix: €155k – €195k · Bonus: €65,875k – €82,875k · EV: €190,65k – €239,85k

• • OTE €220,875 – €277,875 • Fix: €155k – €195k · Bonus: €65,875k – €82,875k · EV: €190,65k – €239,85k

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