Sr. Implementation Specialist

Role Summary

Avalara's implementation practice is the front line of customer value. As our customer base grows in complexity and strategic importance, the demand for senior implementation expertise -- consultants who can own the most demanding engagements, guide enterprise customers through sophisticated configurations, and raise the capability of the team around them -- has never been higher.

The Senior Consultant brings deep tax automation expertise and the ability to operate with a high degree of autonomy across Avalara's most complex ERP, POS, and eCommerce implementations. This role drives customer success outcomes, serves as a key escalation resource within the team, and contributes to the methodology and practices that make the broader implementation function stronger. Reporting to the Implementation Manager, this is a high-ownership role for a practitioner who takes pride in the quality and consistency of their work.

How This Role Elevates Avalara

This role will:

• Deliver consistently excellent outcomes for Avalara's most complex and high-priority customer implementations, raising the quality benchmark for the practice.

• Strengthen team capability by coaching and mentoring junior specialists on advanced configurations, implementation methodology, and customer engagement best practices.

• Reduce delivery risk by proactively identifying implementation risks, resolving escalated issues, and applying structured solutioning to complex customer scenarios.

• Improve the broader practice by contributing to onboarding materials, training curricula, and standard operating procedures in partnership with the Implementation Manager and Learning and Development teams.

• Advance Avalara's product quality by surfacing recurring implementation challenges and influencing product improvements through collaboration with Product, Engineering, and Customer Success.

• Support Avalara's AI-first strategy by leveraging AI tools to improve implementation efficiency, documentation quality, and customer time-to-value.

• Responsibilities

  The successful candidate will:

  • Architect and deliver end-to-end implementations across the full suite of supported ERP and platform integrations, including Sage, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce Stripe Invoicing, NetSuite, and QuickBooks, encompassing technical discovery, advanced configuration, and customization guidance.

  • Own a portfolio of high-priority, high-complexity, or strategic customers, ensuring exceptional delivery quality and customer satisfaction.

  • Lead discovery sessions with enterprise customers to assess tax workflows, recommend optimal configurations, and develop tailored implementation plans aligned to nexus and compliance requirements.

  • Manage technical and tax aspects of customer implementations end-to-end, including task management, solutioning, risk identification and mitigation, and customer communication.

  • Serve as a senior escalation point for complex implementation and support scenarios, guiding junior specialists through advanced configurations and methodology application.

  • Partner with the Implementation Manager and Learning and Development teams to contribute to onboarding materials, training curricula, and standard operating procedures that strengthen the broader implementation practice.

  • Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Customer Success teams to surface recurring implementation challenges and drive product improvements that improve delivery consistency.

  • Apply AI tools to accelerate discovery synthesis, solution design, documentation, and implementation planning.

  12-Month Success Signals

  Within the first 12 months, this consultant will:

  • Successfully deliver a portfolio of high-priority and high-complexity customer implementations at or above established quality and satisfaction benchmarks.

  • Contribute at least one improvement to team onboarding materials, training curricula, or SOPs that is adopted by the broader implementation practice.

  • Demonstrate consistent, effective escalation handling with measurable reduction in unresolved issues within their portfolio.

  • Coach and develop at least one junior specialist, with observable improvement in their methodology application and configuration quality.

  • Surface at least one product or process improvement through cross-functional collaboration with Product, Engineering, or Customer Success.

  • Demonstrate applied use of AI tools that improves speed, documentation quality, or delivery consistency in their implementation engagements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Information Technology, Business Administration, Accounting, Engineering, or a related discipline and 8+ years of experience in software implementation within the B2B sector, with a demonstrated track record of leading complex, multi-platform deployments.

• Deep expertise in tax automation: proven ability to independently lead implementations of tax engines, returns, and exemption certificate systems for Avalara, TaxJar, Vertex, Sovos, Sabrix, or similar platforms.

• Strong knowledge of US sales and use tax compliance, nexus rules, and multi-jurisdictional requirements.

• Proven expertise across ERP and platform integrations including Sage, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Salesforce, NetSuite, and QuickBooks.

• Strong executive presence and communication skills; demonstrated ability to engage confidently with senior stakeholders on both customer and internal sides.

• Demonstrated mentorship and informal leadership capabilities; experience coaching junior team members on implementation methodology and ERP configurations.

• Strategic thinker who translates customer pain points into scalable, repeatable implementation solutions.

• Demonstrated use of AI tools to improve implementation speed, documentation quality, or delivery consistency.

AI Bar Raiser Expectations

At Avalara, Senior Consultants are expected to be AI Bar Raisers, practitioners who improve how AI is applied to implementation work and who help elevate the AI capability of the team around them.

The successful candidate will:

• Leverage approved AI tools to accelerate discovery synthesis, documentation, solution design, and implementation planning.

• Identify opportunities where AI can reduce manual effort, improve configuration consistency, and improve customer time-to-value.

• Apply AI responsibly and securely, ensuring AI-enabled approaches align with customer requirements and Avalara's governance standards.

• Demonstrate measurable improvements in implementation quality, speed, or consistency through applied AI -- not occasional use.

• Share AI approaches, reusable prompts, and implementation patterns that improve AI capability across the implementation team.

Bar Raiser Expectations

At Avalara, we hire Bar Raisers, practitioners who strengthen teams through high standards, deep expertise, and a consistent commitment to improving the people and systems around them. As a Senior Consultant, this role is expected to elevate the quality of customer implementations, strengthen junior team members, and leave the practice better than they found it.

The successful candidate will:

• Hold themselves to high standards of delivery quality, technical accuracy, and customer engagement at every stage of implementation.

• Coach and develop junior specialists, sharing expertise in methodology, ERP configuration, and customer communication in ways that raise team-wide capability.

• Proactively identify risks, escalate with context, and resolve complex issues in ways that build repeatable solutions for the broader team.

• Bring structured thinking to complex customer scenarios, translating requirements into implementation approaches that are scalable, not just case-specific.

• Contribute to a higher-performing team by sharing knowledge, improving documentation, and raising the standard of what good implementation looks like.

• Leave every customer engagement, team interaction, and piece of documentation stronger than they found it.

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.

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.