Software Engineering Manager

About the Role

Avalara is seeking a talented Software Engineering Manager to lead its distributed engineering teams in developing scalable, cloud-native SaaS solutions. This role is crucial in driving execution, enhancing engineering quality and reliability, and ensuring the delivery of secure, high-performance systems that simplify tax compliance for customers. You will report directly to the Director of Engineering.

Team Focus

The engineering teams at Avalara are dedicated to building and evolving cloud-native platforms that manage tax compliance for large-scale transaction environments. Their focus is on creating scalable architectures, upholding strong engineering fundamentals, achieving operational excellence, and employing modern development practices to boost speed, quality, and customer satisfaction.

What You Will Do

As a Software Engineering Manager, you will guide multiple Scrum teams across various geographies, contributing to the creation of scalable SaaS solutions in a distributed setting. Your responsibilities will include collaborating with cross-functional stakeholders, optimizing engineering execution, and supporting architectural and operational decisions that enhance performance, security, reliability, and delivery predictability. You will also play a key role in growing engineering talent, establishing best development practices, and championing the adoption of AI-enabled workflows to improve productivity and quality throughout the software development lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop distributed engineering teams delivering scalable SaaS solutions.
• Drive predictable, high-quality execution across multiple Scrum teams.
• Support architectural decisions that improve scalability, performance, security, and cost efficiency.
• Strengthen CI/CD, automation, and DevOps practices to improve deployment speed and quality.
• Act as an escalation point for production and customer-impacting issues.
• Partner with Product, UX, Architecture, and other stakeholders to align technical work with priorities.
• Hire, coach, and develop engineers.
• Utilize metrics to guide decisions and continuous improvement.
• Strengthen engineering fundamentals in areas like object-oriented design, microservices, APIs, and secure development.
• Lead the adoption of AI-enabled development practices to enhance team effectiveness.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of software development experience delivering large-scale production systems.
• 2+ years of engineering management or equivalent leadership experience leading distributed teams.
• Experience with front-end and full-stack development using technologies such as React, Angular, TypeScript, Node.js, C#, .NET, and REST APIs.
• Experience designing and building scalable microservices architectures.
• Hands-on experience with AWS or another major cloud provider and cloud-native architecture.
• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices using tools like GitLab, Terraform, and Docker.
• Proficiency in scalability, performance optimization, and secure development practices.
• Proven experience in hiring, coaching, and developing engineers.
• Demonstrated use of data and metrics to drive measurable improvements.
• Applied experience using AI to improve engineering outcomes (speed, quality, scale, cost efficiency).
• Experience with relational databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, or Oracle.

About Avalara: An AI-First Company

Avalara is an AI-first company where AI is integrated into workflows, decision-making, and products. Success in this role requires embracing AI as a core capability. You will use AI daily to tackle business challenges, enhance efficiency, contribute solutions, and drive results for your team, the company, and its customers. Continuous learning about new AI trends and best practices is expected.

What We Offer

• Total Rewards: Competitive compensation, paid time off, paid parental leave, and potential bonuses.
• Health & Wellness: Comprehensive benefits including private medical, life, and disability insurance (varies by location).
• Inclusive Culture: A strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, with 8 employee resource groups and senior leadership support.

About Avalara

Avalara is revolutionizing the relationship between tax and technology. With an industry-leading cloud compliance platform processing billions of API calls and millions of tax returns annually, Avalara is a billion-dollar business focused on being part of every transaction globally. The company fosters a bright, innovative, and disruptive culture, symbolized by its optimistic spirit and empowering environment.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Avalara is committed to diversity and inclusion, believing that diverse perspectives enrich the company culture. 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. Reasonable adjustments can be provided during the recruitment process upon request.

Key skills/competency

• Software Engineering Manager
• SaaS Solutions
• Cloud-Native
• Distributed Teams
• Agile/Scrum
• DevOps
• CI/CD
• Microservices
• AI-Enabled Development
• Talent Development