What You'll Do:
Avalara is at an inflection point in how we evolve and scale our platform, products, and technical strategy. As the complexity of our architecture and the pace of innovation increase, the gap between what is being built and how it is understood—internally and externally—also grows.
This role exists to close that gap.
The Technical Communications & Storytelling Lead operates as an extension of the CTO, who leads global Engineering, IT, Content, Security, Onboarding, Managed Services, Professional Services, and Customer Support departments at Avalara. His teams design and operate the technology and services that power the Avalara agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance, focusing on product innovation, integration, reliability, and customer experience. ensuring that Avalara’s technical strategy, platform evolution, and product direction are translated into clear, consistent, and decision-enabling narratives. This is critical to driving alignment across Engineering, Product, Customer teams and leadership, and to effectively communicate our strategy in high-stakes forums including board discussions, executive reviews, and customer engagements.
How This Role Elevates Avalara
What Your Responsibilities Will Be:
Create alignment through narrative: Develop and own CTO-level narratives that clearly articulate technical strategy, platform direction, and product evolution, enabling faster and more effective decision-making
Translate complexity into clarity: Convert complex technical concepts, architectures, and product capabilities into structured, accessible, and high-impact communications
CTO and senior leadership consistently rely on this role for high-stakes communications, including board materials, executive reviews, and external engagements
What You'll Need to be Successful:
We are hiring a Bar Raiser - someone who elevates the clarity, quality, and effectiveness of how technical strategy is communicated and understood across the organization. This role is expected to strengthen how decisions are made by improving the way complex technical work is translated into clear, actionable narratives.
A successful candidate will:
AI Bar Raiser Expectations
We are hiring an AI Bar Raiser - someone who brings applied AI expertise and uses it to meaningfully improve how technical communication and storytelling are produced and scaled. This role is expected to elevate how AI is used across the organization to accelerate clarity, improve decision-making, and increase the speed and quality of communication.
A successful candidate will:
Educational requirement: Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Communications, or a related field.
8–12 years of experience in engineering, technical product development, technical communications, or a related field
Strong understanding of how software systems and platforms are built, including architecture, APIs, and system design concepts
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.
