Lead, People Technology Solutions Design (Payroll & Benefits)

Avalara’s continued global growth requires a scalable, compliant, and reliable People
Technology foundation. The Lead, People Technology Solutions Design serves as the technical
owner for Workday Payroll, Benefits, Time Tracking, Time Off, and Absence. This role leads
solution design, configuration, governance, and continuous improvement across these domains,
ensuring employees are paid accurately, benefits are administered seamlessly, and workforce
time data supports operational, financial, and regulatory requirements. Partnering closely with
HR, Payroll, IT, and external vendors, this role reduces operational risk, improves employee
experience, and enables Avalara’s AI-first strategy through automation and intelligent system
design.

How This Role Elevates Avalara

Team

How This Role Elevates Avalara
Team Impact: Raises the technical capability of the People Technology team through deep
Workday expertise, scalable design standards, documentation, mentoring, and reduced
reliance on external consultants.
Business Impact: Improves payroll accuracy, compliance, operational efficiency, and system
reliability while reducing technical debt and supporting global growth.
Customer (Employee) Impact: Delivers accurate pay, seamless benefits administration, and
reliable time and absence management, improving employee confidence and manager self-
service.

• Own Workday solution design across Payroll, Benefits, Time Tracking, Time Off, and
  Absence, delivering scalable, compliant, and maintainable solutions.
• Lead design and optimization of Workday Payroll configurations supporting multi-state and
  global payroll operations.
• Design and maintain Benefits solutions including eligibility, enrollment events, carrier
  integrations, and open enrollment.
• Configure and optimize Time Tracking, Time Off, and Absence Management to ensure
  regulatory compliance and payroll accuracy.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives from requirements through production deployment with
  HR, Payroll, IT, and vendors.
• Drive continuous improvement by reducing technical debt, simplifying configurations, and
  leveraging AI-enabled capabilities.
• Serve as the technical authority for assigned Workday domains, establishing governance
  and best practices.

12-Month Success Signals

• Established a scalable and well-governed Workday Payroll, Benefits, and Time ecosystem
  that improves reliability, simplifies administration, and supports Avalara's global growth.
• Delivered two or more strategic Workday initiatives from solution design through
  production, achieving measurable business value and strong stakeholder adoption.
• Increased stakeholder confidence in People Technology through improved system stability,
  faster delivery, and trusted partnership with Payroll, HR, Finance, and IT.
• Improved operational efficiency by simplifying configurations, reducing manual processes,
  and introducing automation that increases quality and scalability.
• Successfully managed both Workday biannual releases with effective impact assessments,
  testing, and adoption of new capabilities.
• Implemented at least one AI-enabled capability that measurably improved operational
  efficiency, compliance, reporting, or employee experience.
  AI Expectations
• Use AI to accelerate requirements analysis, solution design, documentation, testing, and
  delivery.
• Apply AI and Workday capabilities to identify anomalies, configuration drift, and
  optimization opportunities.
• Automate repetitive activities such as testing, validation, reporting, and documentation.
• Apply AI responsibly in compliance-sensitive environments following Avalara governance
  and privacy standards.
• Demonstrate measurable business outcomes through AI adoption and share best practices
  across the team

Bar Raiser Expectations

• Use AI to accelerate requirements analysis, solution design, documentation, testing, and
  delivery.
• Apply AI and Workday capabilities to identify anomalies, configuration drift, and
  optimization opportunities.
• Automate repetitive activities such as testing, validation, reporting, and documentation.
• Apply AI responsibly in compliance-sensitive environments following Avalara governance
  and privacy standards.
• Demonstrate measurable business outcomes through AI adoption and share best practices
  across the team.

• B.S. in Computer Science, Information Systems, or Engineering.
• 7+ years of relevant Workday configuration experience aligned to enterprise HR technology.
• Hands-on expertise configuring Workday Payroll, Benefits, Time Tracking, Time Off, and
  Absence.
• Experience with Workday integrations, reporting, business process framework, calculated
  fields, and security.
• Experience supporting SOX-compliant enterprise environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and deliver scalable technical
  solutions.
• Demonstrated application of AI to improve HR technology outcomes.

Bar Raiser Expectations

At Avalara, this role must raise the bar through stronger quality, ownership, judgment, simplification, and measurable business impact. In practice, that means this People Technology Solutions Design Lead of Payroll & Benefits should:

Raise the average performance of the team by demonstrating exceptional ownership, judgment,
accountability, and execution. Simplify complexity, improve talent density through coaching
and example, challenge assumptions with data, and leave every system, process, and team
stronger than you found it.

AI Expectations

• Use AI to accelerate requirements analysis, solution design, documentation, testing, and delivery.
• Apply AI and Workday capabilities to identify anomalies, configuration drift, and optimization opportunities.
• Automate repetitive activities such as testing, validation, reporting, and documentation.
• Apply AI responsibly in compliance-sensitive environments following Avalara governance and privacy standards.
• Demonstrate measurable business outcomes through AI adoption and share best practices across the team.

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. 

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.