Avalara is an AI-first company. As AI continues to transform Sales, Service, Legal, Finance, and IT, we must ensure our AI capabilities are architected responsibly, securely, and at enterprise scale.
The Principal Enterprise AI & Platform Architect defines and governs Avalara’s AI enablement architecture across customer-facing systems, internal operational platforms, and core enterprise technologies including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Finance platforms, Legal systems, and supporting infrastructure.
This strategic, cross-functional leadership role translates enterprise AI ambition into operational architecture standards and reusable design patterns. It ensures AI is not deployed as isolated use cases, but embedded into enterprise platforms through scalable integration patterns, governed data foundations, interoperable services, and economically viable models that drive measurable business outcomes.
By aligning AI initiatives to clear value creation, reducing redundancy, enabling platform interoperability, and ensuring compliance across regulated workflows, this role protects Avalara’s operational integrity while accelerating AI-driven productivity, efficiency, and revenue impact.
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
How This Role Elevates Avalara
For the Business
Enables AI adoption tied directly to revenue growth, operational efficiency, and risk reduction.
Reduces duplication of AI initiatives across functions.
Ensures AI investments scale across multiple domains.
For the Customer
Improves customer experience through responsible AI in Sales and Service.
Reduces operational friction via automation and predictive insights.
Maintains trust through explainable, compliant AI systems.
For the Enterprise
Establishes AI governance guardrails.
Improves platform leverage across Salesforce, ServiceNow, Finance, Legal, and IT systems.
Reduces shadow AI and ungoverned experimentation.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Platform & Functional Architecture
Own the architectural integrity of enterprise back-office domains including Legal, Finance, IT (ServiceNow), and supporting operational platforms.
Define and maintain target-state architecture across enterprise systems to ensure scalability, durability, interoperability, and economic efficiency.
Rationalize overlapping tooling and reduce platform redundancy across corporate systems.
Establish reusable integration patterns between enterprise systems and core platforms (Salesforce, ServiceNow, ERP, data platforms).
Ensure architectural consistency across regulated workflows (contract lifecycle, financial controls, internal IT operations, compliance-driven processes).
Partner with Domain Architects to align value stream strategies with enterprise platform capabilities.
Operational Architecture & Governance
Define architectural standards for system design, integration, data flow, workflow automation, and control mechanisms.
Ensure enterprise platforms meet security, compliance, auditability, and financial control requirements.
Document architecture decisions and maintain enterprise reference models.
Participate in architecture review boards and enforce cross-domain standards.
Reduce technical debt and prevent shadow systems within corporate domains.
AI Governance & Risk Management
Define explainability, traceability, and audit standards for AI-enabled workflows.
Ensure AI systems meet security, privacy, regulatory, and financial control requirements.
Partner with Legal, Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to establish responsible AI guardrails.
Establish architectural review criteria for AI initiatives before production deployment.
Ensure AI-enabled processes preserve governance integrity across regulated back-office domains.
AI Enablement Within Enterprise Platforms
Embed AI capabilities into enterprise systems where they improve measurable operational outcomes.
Integrate AI solutions through governed data foundations and reusable enterprise patterns.
Align AI initiatives to economic viability, risk posture, and enterprise platform standards.
Prevent isolated, duplicative, or unmanaged AI deployments across domains.
AI-Driven Operational Impact
Enable AI use cases that measurably improve:
Sales productivity
Case resolution efficiency
Legal review cycle time
Finance exception handling
IT ticket resolution automation
Quantify AI performance impact (cost savings, time reduction, quality improvement).
Ensure AI improves decision quality and control effectiveness — not just automation speed.
Enterprise Value & Investment Alignment
Align enterprise platform architecture to measurable business outcomes (cost efficiency, compliance integrity, workflow acceleration, scalability).
Support investment decisions through architectural tradeoff analysis tied to risk, cost, and performance.
Ensure enterprise systems are positioned for AI scale without increasing operational risk exposure.
Cross-Functional Leadership
Serve as the enterprise AI architecture authority across corporate domains.
Partner with Domain Architects to embed AI patterns into value streams.
Raise AI maturity across architecture and delivery teams.
Participate in enterprise architecture governance forums and influence enterprise-wide standards.
Drive alignment between AI ambition and operational architecture discipline.
What You'll Need to be Successful
What Success Looks Like (12 Months)
Enterprise AI reference architecture formally adopted.
AI design review framework implemented and in use.
Reduction in duplicate AI tooling and shadow AI initiatives.
Positive executive stakeholder feedback on AI clarity and governance.
Documented improvement in AI adoption velocity without increased risk exposure.
Bar Raiser Expectations
Elevate enterprise standards for architecture clarity and discipline.
Demonstrate strong architectural judgment when balancing innovation and risk.
Raise architecture capability maturity across all domain architects.
Simplify complex ecosystems into actionable enterprise guidance.
Develop Avalara’s architecture to be stronger, more scalable, and more governable.
AI Bar Raiser Expectations
Demonstrate applied AI impact across multiple business functions.
Quantify improvements (cost reduction, productivity lift, revenue influence, risk mitigation).
Architect AI systems that are explainable, secure, and reusable.
Identify high-leverage AI opportunities tied directly to measurable outcomes.
Mentor and elevate AI architectural capability across teams.
Ensure AI adoption scales responsibly
Qualifications (Required)
B.S. in Computer Science or Engineering
10+ years of relevant enterprise architecture experience aligned to large-scale systems.
5+ years working with enterprise platforms (Salesforce, ServiceNow, ERP, Finance systems).
Demonstrated experience embedding AI into operational workflows.
Experience defining AI governance or model lifecycle controls.
Strong understanding of enterprise data architecture and integration patterns.
Experience influencing senior stakeholders across multiple business domains.
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.