Job Description

What You'll Do

Avalara is seeking a Director, Customer Engineering to lead the customer-facing technical engineering function for Avalara Property Tax. Reporting directly to the General Manager of Property Tax, this leader will be the senior technical point of accountability for complex application integrations, strategic customer setup, implementation assurance, and partner technical excellence.

Avalara Property Tax is a high-growth application addressing an estimated $5 billion total addressable market. Success requires a Customer Experience motion that gives new customers confidence from the start: the right integration strategy, the right technical architecture, strong partner guidance, and a clear path from setup to value.

This role will serve as the technical bridge between customers, certified implementation partners, Product, and Engineering. The Director will lead complex integrations involving APIs, MCP servers, Snowflake, Blackhole API, and major ERP connector ecosystems, and will also serve as the technical leader of the Center of Excellence for the certified implementation partner program.

Customer Engineering will be the tip of the spear for innovation. Product Engineers on the team may use AI-enabled development tools, such as Cursor and code-assist agents, to prototype customer workflows, test integration patterns, and create near-production-ready accelerators. Product and Engineering will then move validated prototypes through roadmap prioritization, architectural review, security and control validation, hardening, and release management.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be

Customer Engineering Leadership

• Build and lead a Customer Engineering function that combines solution architecture, implementation engineering, product-engineering prototyping, partner enablement, and customer-facing technical communication.
• Establish operating standards, review practices, documentation expectations, and governance that accelerate strategic setup without bypassing Product, Engineering, the Architecture Review Board, Security, or compliance controls.
• Serve as the senior technical voice for strategic accounts, complex implementations, partner escalations, and customer executive assurance.

Complex Integrations and Solution Architecture

• Lead technical discovery, solution design, and architecture review for complex Avalara Property Tax integrations, including APIs, MCP servers, Snowflake, Blackhole API, and major ERP connector ecosystems.
• Guide customers through data flows, authentication and authorization, ERP connectivity, observability, testing, security, data-handling, and supportability considerations.
• Create reusable reference architectures, implementation blueprints, integration test plans, and go-live readiness checklists.

Innovation and AI-Enabled Prototyping

• Lead an AI-enabled prototyping discipline using tools such as Cursor, code-assist agents, automated test generation, API mocking, and documentation generation to accelerate validated learning.
• Define near-production-ready handoff criteria for Product and Engineering, including the customer problem, business value, technical design, test results, security considerations, data impacts, and supportability notes.
• Convert customer and partner implementation friction into quantified product insights and reusable accelerators that reduce time-to-value across the customer base.

Certified Implementation Partner Center of Excellence

• Serve as the technical leader for the Center of Excellence supporting the certified implementation partner program.
• Create technical certification standards, enablement materials, sandbox/lab exercises, reference builds, architecture guidelines, and quality review gates.
• Train and certify partners on Avalara Property Tax integration patterns, APIs, data flows, ERP connector ecosystems, and implementation best practices.
• Establish partner escalation paths, technical design reviews, implementation QA, and continuous-improvement mechanisms that measure partner readiness, quality, capacity, and customer satisfaction.

Cross-Functional Operating Model

• Partner with the GM to inform product direction through customer signals, market feedback, implementation learnings, partner feedback, and technical feasibility.
• Partner with Product to prioritize validated prototypes, roadmap candidates, workflow gaps, and implementation friction.
• Partner with Engineering and the Architecture Review Board to ensure production releases meet architectural standards, secure SDLC requirements, scalability, reliability, controls, and supportability expectations.
• Partner with Customer Experience, Sales, Solutions Consulting, Support, and Managed Services to create a seamless journey from opportunity through renewal.

What You’ll Need To Be Successful

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Business, or a related field; equivalent practical experience considered.
• 10+ years of experience in enterprise SaaS, customer engineering, solution architecture, integration engineering, technical services, implementation, or professional services.
• 5+ years of people leadership experience, including hiring, coaching, and leading senior technical talent in a matrixed organization.
• Proven experience leading complex customer-facing technical engagements, including executive-level architecture discussions and escalations.
• Deep understanding of API-based integrations, enterprise application architecture, data flows, SaaS/cloud patterns, identity and access management, integration testing, observability, and secure implementation practices.
• Experience with enterprise data platforms such as Snowflake and with major ERP systems or ERP connector ecosystems.
• Ability to guide technical teams using modern AI development tools responsibly, including AI-assisted prototyping, test generation, documentation, and code review workflows.
• Strong operating discipline around prototype governance, supportability, security review, and handoff to Product and Engineering.
• Excellent executive communication, stakeholder management, and ability to influence across Product, Engineering, Customer Experience, Sales, and partner teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Property tax, tax compliance, finance, or regulated workflow domain expertise.
• Experience with Avalara products or related compliance automation platforms.
• Hands-on familiarity with MCP server architectures, Snowflake, Blackhole API, ERP connectors, data migration, and implementation automation.
• Experience building a certified implementation partner program, technical Center of Excellence, partner academy, or partner quality framework.
• Experience in high-growth enterprise SaaS environments with complex implementation, integration, and adoption motions.
• Professional Services, Customer Success Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering, or Managed Services leadership experience.
• MBA or advanced technical degree a plus.

Success Measures

• Faster time-to-value and strategic setup completion for new Avalara Property Tax customers.
• Higher integration quality, fewer preventable implementation escalations, and reduced post-go-live defects.
• Increased certified partner capacity, quality, independence, and customer satisfaction.
• Stronger conversion of customer and partner insights into validated product roadmap inputs.
• Higher customer confidence and implementation satisfaction through visible technical leadership.

How This Role Aligns Product and Engineering

This role accelerates discovery, validation, and technical learning; it does not bypass Product or Engineering ownership. Customer Engineering owns prototypes, implementation patterns, technical enablement, and evidence gathering. Product owns roadmap prioritization, market fit, packaging, user experience, and release decisioning. Engineering owns production architecture, code quality, security, scalability, controls, and release readiness. The goal is to reduce ambiguity before Engineering commits, give Product better validated evidence, and give customers confidence that Avalara has deep technical expertise guiding strategic setup and integration success.

Avalara is an AI-first Company

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.

How We’ll Take Care Of You

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.

What You Need To Know About Avalara

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.