AI & Automation Lead, People Technology

What You'll Do Avalara is an AI-first company operating on a global scale in a private-equity environment that demands increasing efficiency, talent density, and execution rigor. As our workforce grows and complexity increases, manual processes, fragmented workflows, and inconsistent employee experiences create cost, risk, and scalability constraints. The Lead, People Technology – AI & Automation exists to fundamentally modernize how People Technology operates by embedding AI and automation into the employee lifecycle. This role ensures AI is applied responsibly and measurably to reduce manual effort, improve workforce insights, elevate employee and manager experiences, and increase the operating leverage of the People & Culture function. This is not an experimentation role. It is a performance role. Success is measured by measurable improvements in efficiency, adoption, decision quality, and workforce outcomes. How This Role Elevates Avalara Elevates the Team - Raises AI and automation capability across People Technology and People & Culture. - Establishes scalable standards, governance, and reusable patterns. - Improves execution rigor through disciplined prioritization and measurable outcomes. Elevates the Business - Reduces manual effort and operational cost across HR processes. - Improves cycle times (e. g. , hiring, approvals, case resolution, data updates). - Enhances workforce data quality and insight generation to support better decisions. - Increases management leverage through AI-enabled planning and analytics. Elevates the Customer Experience - Enables faster hiring and onboarding of high-quality talent. - Improves employee enablement, productivity, and engagement. - Reduces compliance and operational risk in workforce processes. This role delivers operational scalability by ensuring People Technology systems are intelligent, automated, and aligned to enterprise priorities.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be AI & Automation Strategy Ownership - Own and evolve the AI and automation strategy for People Technology, aligned to business and workforce priorities. - Identify and prioritize high-impact use cases that drive measurable improvements in efficiency, experience, quality, or risk reduction. - Establish scalable AI workflow, agent, and automation standards to ensure repeatable enterprise value. - Move initiatives from experimentation to production through disciplined governance and measurable validation. Product & Portfolio Leadership - Own prioritization, sequencing, and value realization of the People Technology AI roadmap. - Define and track measurable success metrics (e. g. , % manual effort reduced, cycle time improvement, adoption rates, quality improvements). - Balance innovation with long-term maintainability, governance, security, and enterprise alignment. - Maintain clear accountability for business impact and roadmap outcomes. Experience & Platform Influence - Influence the design and optimization of core HR platforms (including Workday) to simplify, standardize, and modernize workforce experiences. - Partner cross-functionally with IT (AvaTech), Security, Legal, Privacy, and TPM to ensure responsible AI implementation. - Improve employee and manager self-service experiences through AI-enabled knowledge retrieval, approvals, triage, and workflow orchestration. Solution Design & Value Realization - Design AI-enabled workflows and automation solutions across People Technology systems. - Prototype and implement targeted internal tools or automations that accelerate measurable value. - Ensure all AI-enabled solutions meet enterprise architecture, security, privacy, and compliance standards. - Document reusable patterns and standards to scale AI capability across the function. Leadership & Capability Elevation - Elevate AI and automation literacy across People Technology and People & Culture. - Mentor peers and influence stakeholders without formal authority.