Director, Engineering, Agentic Content

What You'll Do

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.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be

• 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.

What You’ll Need To Be Successful

• 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.

How We’ll Take Care Of You

• Total Rewards: Great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave.
• Health & Wellness Benefits: Private medical, life, and disability insurance.
• Inclusive Culture and Diversity: Support for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and commitment to integrating them into business practices and organizational culture.

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.
• We’re a billion-dollar business with a mission to be part of every transaction in the world.
• We’re bright, innovative, and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear.
• We’re an equal opportunity employer supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion.