Director, Engineering (GRL)

Avalara APAC; Maharashtra; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 6,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Job summary

Avalara seeks a technically grounded, people-first engineering leader in India to own delivery and team growth for its Global Registration & Licenses platform, a cloud-native compliance ecosystem spanning 100+ countries and multiple tax types.

You will drive end-to-end engineering delivery, hire and develop teams, and champion AI-enabled automation to accelerate onboarding, improve efficiency, and scale transactions and partner volumes in 2026.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree (or higher) in Computer Science or Engineering.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in engineering management or team leadership.
• Proven success leading engineering teams delivering cloud-native, distributed SaaS platforms at scale.
• Solid foundation in software architecture patterns, system design, and enterprise-scale platform integration.
• Experience with platform modernization—re-platforming legacy systems, shared-service architectures, and scalable microservices/serverless designs.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled platforms and intelligent workflow automation in compliance contexts.
• Experience delivering platforms with auditability, traceability, and regulatory requirements.
• Experience with AWS, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and modern DevOps practices.
• Strong track record of building high-performing teams with empowering, execution-focused leadership.
• Clear, strategic communication across technical, product, and business teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow engineering teams in India — owning hiring, performance development, career growth, and organizational health across multiple product areas within the GRL organization.
• Drive end-to-end engineering delivery across your teams, owning commitments, sprint health, quality, and operational excellence.
• Translate architectural direction from Principal Architects into team-level execution plans, engineering roadmaps, and measurable delivery milestones.
• Partner cross-functionally with product, design, data, and operations leaders to align team execution with business strategy and customer outcomes across Filing guidance, Licenses, and Registration platforms.
• Own engineering delivery for platform capabilities including workflow orchestration, rules engines, case management systems, and regulatory compliance integrations.
• Drive platform modernization within your scope — consolidating shared services, decoupling legacy components, and enabling AI-powered automation across preparation, filing, retrieval, and compliance workflows.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for performance, reliability, security, observability, and operational excellence.
• Proactively identify and resolve delivery risks, team bottlenecks, technical debt, and cross-team dependencies before they impact customers or business operations.
• Represent your teams' engineering perspective in planning, prioritization, and strategic discussions with senior leadership.
• Promote a culture of innovation, simplification, ownership, accountability, and AI-enabled engineering excellence.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Cloud-native SaaS

Platform modernization

AI-enabled platforms

AWS

CI/CD

Strategic communication

Job description

What You'll Do

We're looking for a technically grounded, people-first engineering leader to own delivery and team growth for Avalara's Global Registration & Licenses platform — a cloud-native compliance ecosystem spanning 100+ countries, multiple tax types, and four core platforms related Filings, License management and Registration management related platforms.

This is more than a management role. It's a chance to lead teams through a high-impact transformation — driving automation of core compliance workflows with a north-star goal of 100%, accelerating jurisdiction onboarding from weeks to hours, and embedding AI into the heart of how Avalara delivers compliance at scale. The work your teams deliver is expected to create operational efficiencies of 50% across manual workflows while enabling 3X transaction and partner growth volumes in 2026.

This role is a great fit for you if you are:

• You're an engineering leader who leads with both technical credibility and people-first instincts — you raise the bar on both dimensions simultaneously.
• You see AI not as a feature, but as a fundamental shift in how compliance platforms operate — and you know how to bring your teams along on that journey with intent and rigor.
• You thrive in high-accountability environments where you own outcomes end-to-end, not just activities.
• You're energized by building engineering teams from the ground up and leaving every team, platform, and process stronger than you found it.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be

• Lead and grow engineering teams in India — owning hiring, performance development, career growth, and organizational health across multiple product areas within the GRL organization.
• Drive end-to-end engineering delivery across your teams, owning commitments, sprint health, quality, and operational excellence.
• Translate architectural direction from Principal Architects into team-level execution plans, engineering roadmaps, and measurable delivery milestones.
• Partner cross-functionally with product, design, data, and operations leaders to align team execution with business strategy and customer outcomes across Filing guidance, Licenses, and Registration platforms.
• Own engineering delivery for platform capabilities including workflow orchestration, rules engines, case management systems, and regulatory compliance integrations.
• Drive platform modernization within your scope — consolidating shared services, decoupling legacy components, and enabling AI-powered automation across preparation, filing, retrieval, and compliance workflows.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for performance, reliability, security, observability, and operational excellence across your teams.
• Proactively identify and resolve delivery risks, team bottlenecks, technical debt, and cross-team dependencies before they impact customers or business operations.
• Represent your teams' engineering perspective in planning, prioritization, and strategic discussions with senior leadership.
• Promote a culture of innovation, simplification, ownership, accountability, and AI-enabled engineering excellence.

What You’ll Need To Be Successful

• A bachelor's degree (or higher) in Computer Science or Engineering is required.
• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in engineering management or team leadership roles.
• Proven success leading engineering teams delivering cloud-native, distributed SaaS platforms at scale.
• A solid technical foundation in software architecture patterns, system design, and enterprise-scale platform integration.
• Experience with platform modernization — re-platforming legacy systems, building shared-service architectures, and enabling scalable microservices or serverless designs.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled platforms, intelligent workflow automation, or rules-based decisioning systems used in compliance, eligibility, or regulatory contexts.
• Experience delivering platforms with strong auditability, traceability, and regulatory compliance requirements.
• Experience with AWS, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and modern DevOps practices.
• A track record of building and growing high-performing engineering teams, with a leadership style that is both empowering and execution-focused.
• Clear, strategic communication — comfortable influencing across technical, product, and business teams.

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.