Principal Enterprise AI & Platform Architect

Avalara • Durham, NC

13h

About The Position

Avalara is an AI-first company. As AI continues to transform Sales, Service, Legal, Finance, and IT, we must ensure our AI capabilities are architected responsibly, securely, and at enterprise scale.
The Principal Enterprise AI & Platform Architect defines and governs Avalara’s AI enablement architecture across customer-facing systems, internal operational platforms, and core enterprise technologies including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Finance platforms, Legal systems, and supporting infrastructure.
This strategic, cross-functional leadership role translates enterprise AI ambition into operational architecture standards and reusable design patterns. It ensures AI is not deployed as isolated use cases, but embedded into enterprise platforms through scalable integration patterns, governed data foundations, interoperable services, and economically viable models that drive measurable business outcomes.
By aligning AI initiatives to clear value creation, reducing redundancy, enabling platform interoperability, and ensuring compliance across regulated workflows, this role protects Avalara’s operational integrity while accelerating AI-driven productivity, efficiency, and revenue impact.

Requirements

• B.S. in Computer Science or Engineering
• 10+ years of relevant enterprise architecture experience aligned to large-scale systems.
• 5+ years working with enterprise platforms (Salesforce, ServiceNow, ERP, Finance systems).
• Demonstrated experience embedding AI into operational workflows.
• Experience defining AI governance or model lifecycle controls.
• Strong understanding of enterprise data architecture and integration patterns.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders across multiple business domains.

Responsibilities

• Own the architectural integrity of enterprise back-office domains including Legal, Finance, IT (ServiceNow), and supporting operational platforms.
• Define and maintain target-state architecture across enterprise systems to ensure scalability, durability, interoperability, and economic efficiency.
• Rationalize overlapping tooling and reduce platform redundancy across corporate systems.
• Establish reusable integration patterns between enterprise systems and core platforms (Salesforce, ServiceNow, ERP, data platforms).
• Ensure architectural consistency across regulated workflows (contract lifecycle, financial controls, internal IT operations, compliance-driven processes).
• Partner with Domain Architects to align value stream strategies with enterprise platform capabilities.
• Define architectural standards for system design, integration, data flow, workflow automation, and control mechanisms.
• Ensure enterprise platforms meet security, compliance, auditability, and financial control requirements.
• Document architecture decisions and maintain enterprise reference models.
• Participate in architecture review boards and enforce cross-domain standards.
• Reduce technical debt and prevent shadow systems within corporate domains.
• Define explainability, traceability, and audit standards for AI-enabled workflows.
• Ensure AI systems meet security, privacy, regulatory, and financial control requirements.
• Partner with Legal, Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to establish responsible AI guardrails.
• Establish architectural review criteria for AI initiatives before production deployment.
• Ensure AI-enabled processes preserve governance integrity across regulated back-office domains.
• Embed AI capabilities into enterprise systems where they improve measurable operational outcomes.
• Integrate AI solutions through governed data foundations and reusable enterprise patterns.
• Align AI initiatives to economic viability, risk posture, and enterprise platform standards.
• Prevent isolated, duplicative, or unmanaged AI deployments across domains.
• Enable AI use cases that measurably improve: Sales productivity Case resolution efficiency Legal review cycle time Finance exception handling IT ticket resolution automation
• Quantify AI performance impact (cost savings, time reduction, quality improvement).
• Ensure AI improves decision quality and control effectiveness — not just automation speed.
• Align enterprise platform architecture to measurable business outcomes (cost efficiency, compliance integrity, workflow acceleration, scalability).
• Support investment decisions through architectural tradeoff analysis tied to risk, cost, and performance.
• Ensure enterprise systems are positioned for AI scale without increasing operational risk exposure.
• Serve as the enterprise AI architecture authority across corporate domains.
• Partner with Domain Architects to embed AI patterns into value streams.
• Raise AI maturity across architecture and delivery teams.
• Participate in enterprise architecture governance forums and influence enterprise-wide standards.
• Drive alignment between AI ambition and operational architecture discipline.

Benefits

• In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
• Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.
• 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 This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal