Senior Manager, People Technology

What You'll Do:

Avalara is looking for a Senior Manager, People Technology to lead the daily delivery, optimization, and governance of our Workday platform. In this role, you will lead a team of Workday experts. This team designs, builds, and supports scalable solutions across the employee lifecycle. These solutions include human capital management, talent, performance, compensation, absence, benefits, payroll, recruiting, and Workday Extend. You will translate priorities into a practical roadmap, simplify processes, and help make Workday easier for employees, managers, Talent Acquisition, People and Culture, and Finance teams to use. You will also help Avalara strengthen operational readiness, improve people data quality, and apply automation and artificial intelligence in responsible, practical ways that reduce manual work and improve decision-making.

You will be reporting to Director, Enterprise Systems.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be:

• Be a product owner for Workday across important modules, including core human capital management, talent, performance, compensation, absence, benefits, payroll, recruiting, and Workday Extend.

• Lead major Workday programs from discovery through deployment and stabilisation, including recruiting implementation, global process redesigns, new modules, and annual cycles.

• Oversee Workday operations, incidents, enhancements, data corrections, release planning, and service-level performance.

• Define and maintain Workday configuration standards, security model principles, business process design guidelines, and change governance.

• Partner with People and Culture, Talent Acquisition, Payroll, Finance, Security, Audit, Compliance, and business leaders to align priorities, trade-offs, timelines, and impacts.

• Manage Workday integrations with downstream systems, including payroll, benefits, identity, recruiting tools, and analytics platforms.

• Strengthen audit readiness, access reviews, control testing, privacy alignment, and system discipline to support risk management and business scale.

• Build and coach a high-performing Workday team with clear ownership, documentation, and repeatable delivery practices.

• Identify automation and artificial intelligence opportunities across Workday and adjacent people processes, with attention to data quality, compliance, privacy, and user experience.

• Improve employee and manager experiences by simplifying hiring, transfers, performance, compensation, benefits, leave, and other Workday workflows.

What You'll Need to be Successful:

• • 10+ years of experience in human resources information systems, People Technology, or human resources systems, including 6+ years of hands-on Workday ownership in a global environment.

  • 4+ years of people management experience leading Workday or human resources technology teams, with experience in coaching, raising team capability, and reducing reliance on external partners over time.

  • Deep functional and configuration experience across multiple Workday modules, such as core human capital management, talent and performance, advanced compensation, time and absence, benefits, payroll, recruiting, Workday Extend, Studio, or Orchestrations.

  • Experience leading large Workday programs, including implementations, new modules, major redesigns, global rollouts, integrations, vendor partnerships, and post-launch stabilisation.

  • Experience with end-to-end human resources and Talent Acquisition processes, Workday security, business process design, configuration standards, controls, and audit readiness.

  • Simplify complexity, influence senior stakeholders, and apply automation and artificial intelligence responsibly to improve efficiency, system reliability, user experience and data quality

  #LI-Remote

  This is a remote position.

Avalara is an AI-first Company:

AI Expectations 

The successful candidate will: 

• Identify and prioritize AI and automation opportunities within Workday and adjacent HR/TA processes to reduce manual work and improve decision quality. 

• Evaluate AI-enabled capabilities in Workday and related platforms, balancing innovation with data quality, risk, and change-management needs. 

• Apply sound judgment on ethics, privacy, and compliance when using AI in people processes, escalating risks and helping to shape appropriate governance and guardrails. 

• Identify AI opportunities tied to revenue enablement, efficiency, workforce quality, or risk reduction. 

• Elevate AI maturity and best practices across the function.