[Hiring] People Operations & AI Transformation Architect @Avalara

Role Description

Avalara makes tax compliance faster, easier, more accurate, and more reliable for businesses. We're now applying that same standard to how we run our own People & Culture (P&C) function, Avalara's term for Human Resources. A new internal team, AI Transformation & Operational Excellence, has been created to redesign how P&C delivers services to employees, managers, and the business, using AI and automation as core tools rather than afterthoughts.

This team's mandate is to rebuild P&C's processes and technology from the ground up:

• Not just make today's processes faster, but decide, process by process, what should be fully automated, what should be enhanced with AI, and what should remain human-led.
• This role owns that end to end: you dig into how a process actually works today, document it clearly, decide what belongs on each side of that automate/augment/human line, and then build or oversee the build of the solution, partnering closely with Avalara's People Technology (engineering) team where needed.

This role calls for someone who has genuinely done architecture work for process before:

• Not just documented how something works today, but designed what it should become, end to end.
• Paired with deep, hands-on AI fluency: the ability to dig into a messy, real-world process, understand it fully, document it clearly, and see exactly where AI can fully automate a step, where it should augment a person doing the work, and where the work should stay human, and then design for it.

The impact of this role is to completely reimagine how People & Culture's processes work:

• Building a genuinely strong operating model underneath P&C.
• Envisioning what the experience should be for each persona who touches it, including employees, people managers, candidates, the business, and P&C itself.

This role owns the process architecture, the operating model, and the vision for each solution. From there, the actual AI tool build can go either way:

• Hand it to the People Technology (engineering) team to build, or build it yourself, including building AI agents directly, depending on the complexity of the tool and where capacity sits at the time.

You'll operate with significant autonomy on ambiguous, cross-functional problems, and be a trusted partner to P&C leadership and to Avalara's People Technology (engineering) leadership alike.

Responsibilities

• Dig Into & Document Current State:
  • Get into the details of how a process actually works today, not just what's documented, through direct observation, data review, and conversations with the people doing the work.
  • Build clear, step-by-step process maps and a prioritized list of pain points and gaps that others can act on.
  • Gather baseline data on existing processes, such as cycle time, volume, and error rates, to ground redesign decisions in evidence, not assumptions.
• Envision the Future Experience by Persona:
  • Reimagine what the process should look and feel like for each persona it touches (employee, people manager, candidate, business, and P&C itself), rather than incrementally improving the current experience.
  • Turn that persona-based vision into a clear target state: what changes for the person going through it, and what has to be true of the process and technology to deliver it.
  • Use that target-state vision as the basis for the automate, augment, or human-led decisions that follow.
• Decide What's Automated, Augmented, or Human:
  • For each step of a process, make the call: fully automate with AI, augment a person with AI, or keep it human-led, and be able to explain why.
  • Translate that judgment into concrete technical requirements and specifications an engineering team can build against.
  • Assess build-vs-buy for each opportunity: build in-house, buy a vendor solution, or integrate with an existing platform (e.g., Workday), and sequence the work into phases that deliver value quickly.
• Design & Build the Solution:
  • Design the target-state solution architecture for each process, not just the requirements, but how the pieces fit together, and decide whether to hand the AI tool build to People Technology or build it yourself, based on complexity and where capacity sits.
  • Where you build it yourself, build the AI agents and automations directly. Where People Technology builds it, partner closely with their engineers on requirements, testing, and QA throughout.
  • Identify upstream and downstream impacts on other processes, systems, and teams before committing to a build.
• Own the Operating Model & Roadmap:
  • Own and maintain the AI & automation roadmap for the processes you're responsible for, aligning priorities with P&C leadership and People Technology.
  • Build a strong, durable operating model underneath each redesigned process: one that holds up after the initial build, not just at launch.
  • Build ROI models and success measures for each tool or automation, track performance against them, and recommend retiring what isn't delivering.
• Support Agent Governance & Org Design:
  • Partner with P&C leadership to determine where each AI agent “reports into” within the P&C org structure: which team is accountable for its use, oversight, and outcomes.
  • Help define how to assess an agent's performance much like you would an employee's, with clear ownership, accountability, and performance criteria.
  • Maintain a current map of every agent and automation in production, its owning team, and its performance status.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience doing architecture work for process: designing a target-state process and operating model end to end, not just mapping how something works today.
• Strong process aptitude: you can take a messy, real-world process, dig into how it actually works, and turn it into a clear, documented, step-by-step map.
• Deep, hands-on AI experience: not just familiarity with generative AI features, but real experience building or deploying AI agents and automations in a live operational environment.
• Hands-on experience with agentic AI specifically: building multi-step, tool-using AI agents, working with prompt design and LLM orchestration, and applying that to real business processes rather than isolated experiments.
• Demonstrated judgment for deciding what should be fully automated, AI-augmented, or kept human-led, and designing for each accordingly.
• Comfort owning both ends of the build decision: building an AI agent or automation yourself when that's the right call, and handing off a clear, buildable spec to an engineering team when it isn't.
• Direct experience with build-vs-buy decisions for software or AI tools, including evaluating vendor solutions against custom builds.
• Experience partnering with software engineers through implementation: testing, deploying, and iterating, not just handing off a spec.
• Experience sequencing large initiatives into phases that deliver value quickly and can be adjusted along the way.
• Strong communication skills: credible with engineers, understandable to business and operations stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• Experience in HR, People Operations, or a comparable operations function (recruiting, employee lifecycle, service delivery). Helpful context, not a prerequisite.
• Hands-on Workday experience (configuration, reporting, or implementation).
• Background in solutions architecture, technical product management, or a similar hybrid business/technical role.
• Familiarity with workflow automation platforms or RPA tools beyond agentic AI.
• Experience defining org structure or governance models for AI agents or automated systems.

Requirements

• The base pay range(s) below are provided in compliance with state specific laws. Pay ranges may differ in other locations.
• Colorado $153,300-$252,900 (annually)
• Washington $153,300-$279,600 (annually)
• California $153,300-$306,300 (annually)
• NYC $169,400-$306,300 (annually)
• The pay range above is the general base pay range for a successful candidate in the state listed. 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.

Benefits

• In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
• Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.