Director – Engineering
Avalara
Director – Engineering
Avalara
Cloud-based tax compliance and automation platform
Avalara is building the Agentic Content Studio Platform (ACSP), a next-generation platform designed to improve how global tax and compliance content is sourced, maintained, validated, and consumed across the business.
The Director of Engineering, Agentic Content Engineering, will lead the strategy, architecture, and execution of Agentic Content Studio Platform. This platform will support expansion into new content domains including VAT Advanced Sections, Registration, Business Licenses, XBorder Marketplace, and Communications, while also improving the efficiency and scalability of existing content operations through automation and AI-assisted workflows.
This role combines platform engineering, applied AI, workflow automation, and organizational leadership. Success in this role requires balancing technical innovation with operational rigor, measurable business outcomes, platform reliability, and responsible AI adoption.
The platform is expected to improve content scalability, accelerate onboarding of new content domains, reduce manual research effort, and enable content teams to operate through AI-assisted and human-reviewed workflows.
• Define and execute the engineering vision, architecture, and delivery roadmap for the Agentic Content Studio Platform.
• Build scalable platform capabilities that support onboarding and maintenance of global compliance content across multiple domains.
• Lead development of AI-assisted workflows that automate sourcing, extraction, transformation, validation, and maintenance of content.
• Establish reliable human-in-the-loop operating models that combine AI-driven automation with researcher review and oversight.
• Design secure, observable, and resilient platform services spanning orchestration, APIs, workflow automation, integrations, and content systems.
• Enable downstream products and services such as AvaTax, ATC, and ATR to interact with platform capabilities through modern integration interfaces, including MCP where appropriate.
• Define measurable engineering and operational metrics tied to platform reliability, quality, productivity, adoption, and business impact.
• Partner closely with Product, Content Research, Applied AI, Architecture, and business stakeholders to align platform investments with company priorities.
• Build and develop a high-performing engineering organization with strong technical depth, accountability, and execution discipline.
• Drive pragmatic adoption of AI across engineering workflows, planning, delivery operations, observability, and decision-making processes.
• Ensure governance, security, and responsible AI practices are incorporated into platform design and operational processes.
12-Month Success Outcomes
• Deliver and operationalize a clear ACSP platform roadmap aligned to Avalara’s content expansion and productivity objectives.
• Launch foundational platform capabilities supporting the first wave of new content domains and workflow automation initiatives.
• Deliver production-ready AI-assisted workflows for sourcing and extracting international lodging content in targeted countries.
• Deliver scalable workflows supporting generation and maintenance of VAT advanced section content across multiple countries.
• Improve operational efficiency by reducing manual content research and maintenance effort through automation and reviewer-assisted workflows.
• Establish reliable production integrations enabling downstream systems to consume platform capabilities through standardized interfaces.
• Implement measurable operational metrics for reliability, automation coverage, quality, cycle time, and platform adoption.
• Build a strong engineering leadership team with clear ownership, high accountability, and strong execution standards.
Applied AI Expectations
• Apply AI to improve automation, scalability, quality, and operational efficiency.
• Design agent-based workflows capable of coordinating multi-step content tasks with appropriate escalation and human review mechanisms.
• Leverage AI to improve engineering execution, planning, observability, and operational workflows.
• Drive adoption of AI capabilities as part of core platform functionality and engineering operations rather than isolated experimentation.
• Ensure responsible use of AI through governance, transparency, monitoring, and risk controls.
• Raise engineering team capability through coaching, standards, and practical implementation guidance.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including large-scale platforms or distributed systems.
• 5+ years of experience leading engineering managers and senior engineers in complex cross-functional organizations.
• Proven experience leading platform strategy, architecture, and execution with measurable business outcomes.
• Experience applying AI and automation to improve operational scale, quality, productivity, or customer impact.
• Strong experience with distributed systems, APIs, workflow orchestration, integrations, and event-driven architectures.
• Experience building platforms that support automation, operational observability, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
• Strong cross-functional leadership skills with the ability to align engineering investments to business priorities.
• Excellent execution rigor, technical judgment, communication skills, and organizational leadership.
Technical Expertise
• Experience with LLMs, agent-based systems, RAG architectures, or equivalent AI platforms.
• Strong engineering background in Python and modern AI application frameworks.
• Experience building cloud-native systems on AWS, Azure, or GCP.
• Familiarity with MLOps practices including CI/CD, evaluation pipelines, monitoring, and model lifecycle management.
• Strong platform and systems design experience focused on reliability, scalability, and operational excellence.
Leadership Characteristics
• Demonstrated ability to build and mentor high-performing engineering organizations.
• Strong product and platform mindset with a focus on customer and business outcomes.
• Ability to communicate effectively with senior technical and executive stakeholders.
• Pragmatic, execution-oriented leader capable of operating strategically while remaining technically engaged.
What Makes This a Bar-Raiser Role
AI Bar Raiser
At Avalara, this role is expected to be an AI Bar Raiser — a leader who elevates both the technical capability of the organization and the practical application of AI across engineering and operational workflows.
This individual is expected to apply advanced AI capabilities to materially improve how systems are designed, built, operated, and scaled, while driving measurable gains in engineering productivity, quality, automation, and business impact. The expectation is to create a culture of 10x productivity through the effective use of AI tools, modern engineering technologies, automation, and an agile execution mindset where speed is table stakes.
Bar Raiser
At Avalara, this role is expected to be a Bar Raiser who strengthens teams by improving technical judgment, accelerating organizational learning, mentoring engineers and leaders, and leaving platforms, processes, and operating models significantly better than they found them.
This role is expected to redefine how engineering, AI, and content operations work together at scale across Avalara.
Success requires building not only a technically strong platform, but also a durable operating model that improves execution speed, quality, scalability, and business impact.
The leader in this role must consistently raise the bar across architecture, engineering discipline, AI adoption, operational excellence, talent density, and cross-functional execution.
The ideal candidate combines deep technical judgment with strong organizational leadership and has a demonstrated track record of delivering complex platform transformations with measurable outcomes.
This is a highly visible leadership role with direct influence on Avalara’s AI strategy, content scalability, and long-term operational efficiency.
Compensation
The compensation range for this role is as follows: $217,900 - $448,500. The successful candidate's actual salary/wage may be based on various factors, such as geographic location, candidate experience and qualifications, as well as market and business considerations.
This role is eligible for an annual bonus based on individual and company performance, depending on the terms of the applicable plan and the employee's role. This role is also eligible for an equity award, subject to the terms of the applicable plan.
AI is embedded in our workflows, decision-making, and products. Success here requires embracing AI as an essential capability.
You’ll bring experience using AI and AI-related technologies, ready to thrive here.
You’ll apply AI every day to business challenges - improving efficiency, contributing solutions, and driving results for your team, our company, and our customers.
You’ll grow with AI by staying curious about new trends and best practices, and by sharing what you learn so others can benefit too.
Total Rewards
In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
Health & Wellness
Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.
Inclusive culture and diversity
Avalara strongly supports diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is committed to integrating them into our business practices and our organizational culture. We also have a total of 8 employee-run resource groups, each with senior leadership and exec sponsorship.
We’re defining the relationship between tax and tech.
We’ve already built an industry-leading cloud compliance platform, processing over 54 billion customer API calls and over 6.6 million tax returns a year. Our growth is real - we're a billion dollar business - and we’re not slowing down until we’ve achieved our mission - to be part of every transaction in the world.
We’re bright, innovative, and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear. It captures our quirky spirit and optimistic mindset. It shows off the culture we’ve designed, that empowers our people to win. We’ve been different from day one. Join us, and your career will be too.
We’re An Equal Opportunity Employer
Supporting diversity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our company — we don’t want people to fit into our culture, but to enrich it. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.
Avalara provides cloud-based tax compliance services for businesses of all sizes. Its main product, AvaTax, automatically calculates sales tax at the point of purchase and can be connected to many business apps to make tax determinations as orders move through a company’s systems. Beyond calculation, Avalara offers returns filing and ongoing compliance management, helping customers stay up to date with changing tax laws. The company earns money through subscriptions tied to how many transactions you process and how complex your tax needs are, and it also offers consulting and training services to support customers. Compared with others, Avalara covers many industries (like e-commerce, retail, manufacturing, and software) and integrates with a wide range of platforms, aiming to provide an end-to-end, automated tax workflow. Its goal is to reduce the risk of penalties and streamline tax compliance so businesses can focus on their core operations.
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