[Remote] Head of GAI & Business Operations, Avalara Micro and Emerging Business

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Avalara is hiring a Principal-level Head of Generative AI & Business Operations to build the operating layer for its Micro and Emerging Business portfolio. The role leads business operations architecture, performance instrumentation, AI-enabled workflows, automation, and cross-functional execution to improve growth, efficiency, and customer outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Define and run the business operating cadence across weekly performance reviews, roadmap reviews, experiment reviews, launch readiness, partner readiness, support health, and executive updates
• Establish a single operating model for goals, ownership, decision rights, intake, prioritization, escalation, and follow-through across Product, Growth, Operations, Engineering, Support, Finance, Legal, and Go-to-Market
• Create dashboards and decision surfaces that make the business visible: acquisition, conversion, activation, onboarding throughput, support demand, automation rate, churn, expansion, partner performance, revenue, margin, and customer effort
• Identify operational bottlenecks and translate them into automation, process, data, tooling, or organizational recommendations
• Define the generative AI roadmap for the business, focused on measurable business impact rather than generic AI experimentation
• Build and operationalize AI-enabled workflows that reduce manual work in onboarding, support, data intake, account setup, compliance handoffs, partner operations, reporting, and internal decision support
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Data Science, Security, Legal, Support, Tax Content, and Compliance to ensure AI-enabled workflows are accurate, governed, explainable, auditable, and scalable
• Develop reusable AI patterns, prompts, agents, evaluation methods, and operating controls that can be adopted across the portfolio
• Measure AI impact through time saved, cost avoided, quality improved, cycle time reduced, support deflection, faster onboarding, improved conversion, or increased operating leverage
• Define the metric architecture for the portfolio, including north-star metrics, scorecards, funnel analytics, operational health metrics, automation KPIs, partner-channel metrics, and financial performance views
• Partner with Finance, Data, Revenue Operations, Marketing Operations, Support Operations, and Product Analytics to ensure metrics are trusted, repeatable, and decision-ready
• Build business review materials for the VP, GM and senior stakeholders, translating data into decisions, tradeoffs, risks, and recommended actions
• Establish leading indicators that identify churn risk, onboarding friction, support spikes, partner underperformance, and low-value operational work before they become escalations
• Map high-volume manual workflows and prioritize automation opportunities based on business value, customer impact, risk, and implementation effort
• Convert repeatable manual processes into structured workflows, AI-assisted tools, self-serve dashboards, templates, playbooks, and operational controls
• Partner with shared services and platform teams to consume existing Avalara systems where appropriate rather than creating duplicate tooling
• Create clear operating handoffs between business teams and central teams for billing, provisioning, filing, support, tax content, customer communications, and partner operations
• Build operational visibility across partner-led, embedded, marketplace, and direct-to-market motions
• Instrument the full customer journey from acquisition and purchase through onboarding, activation, support, retention, and expansion
• Partner with Product, Growth, Business Development, Sales, Support, and Operations to identify friction in the funnel and translate it into measurable execution plans
• Create repeatable operating patterns that help the business scale across both partner ecosystems and direct digital channels
• Influence senior leaders and functional owners across Avalara to align on priorities, data definitions, tooling decisions, operational standards, and customer-impacting tradeoffs
• Create formal networks with key decision makers across Product, Engineering, Go-to-Market, Finance, Support, Data, Security, and Compliance
• Lead complex, cross-functional initiatives from ambiguous problem statement to shipped operating capability
• Serve as the VP, GM’s principal business-operations partner, helping convert strategy into execution discipline and measurable outcomes

Skills

• 12+ years of experience in business operations, product operations, strategy and operations, revenue operations, analytics, AI transformation, product management, or operational leadership in SaaS, fintech, marketplace, compliance, tax, payments, or e-commerce environments
• Demonstrated experience operating at principal or senior-strategic individual-contributor level, with influence across multiple functions and senior stakeholders
• Proven ability to design operating systems for high-growth businesses, including planning cadences, scorecards, decision rights, KPI architecture, executive reporting, and cross-functional governance
• Strong applied AI fluency, including hands-on experience using LLMs, agents, automation platforms, prompt systems, workflow tools, evaluation methods, or AI-enabled analytics to improve measurable business outcomes
• Deep analytical capability: ability to structure ambiguous business problems, define metrics, interrogate data quality, build dashboards or requirements, and translate insights into action
• Strong systems thinking: ability to connect customer journey, product experience, data flow, operational process, financial impact, and organizational design
• Ability to work through influence rather than hierarchy, especially in matrixed environments with shared platform teams and distributed ownership
• Excellent written communication skills, including executive narratives, operating memos, decision briefs, business cases, scorecards, and launch/readiness materials
• Strong judgment around responsible AI, customer data, compliance-sensitive workflows, operational risk, and quality controls
• Bachelor's degree in business, analytics, computer science, engineering, economics, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience building business operations or product operations functions for a product-led growth, self-serve, embedded, marketplace, partner-led, or SMB-focused SaaS business
• Experience with tax, compliance, accounting, payments, POS, hospitality/lodging, e-commerce, or regulated workflow automation
• Experience implementing AI-enabled internal tools, operations copilots, support deflection, onboarding automation, data-ingestion automation, or executive decision-support systems
• Experience with BI and operating data ecosystems such as Salesforce, Gainsight, Power BI, Snowflake, Looker, Tableau, Jira, Zendesk, or equivalent platforms
• Experience partnering with product and engineering teams to translate operational needs into scalable internal products or platform capabilities

Benefits

• Paid time off
• Paid parental leave
• Many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.
• Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.
• A total of 8 employee-run resource groups, each with senior leadership and exec sponsorship.

Company Overview

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