Director, Engineering - Avalara Developer Experience Platform
AvalaraAbout the role
What You'll Do
We are seeking a Director/Sr. Director to lead Avalara’s Agentic Developer Experience (DX) Platform — focused on enabling developers and AI agents to seamlessly discover, understand, and integrate with Avalara’s products.
This role owns the external developer experience layer, including exposing documentation for agent-facing interfaces (e.g., MCP), documentation and knowledge systems, interactive tooling, and AI-powered integration accelerators. You will partner closely with domain-focused product engineering who own APIs, MCP tools, backend systems and the partner engineering team, and ensure these capabilities are exposed in a consistent, intuitive, and agent-friendly manner for developer and partners.
#LI-Remote
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Agent Experience Layer
Build and evolve the external MCP-based interface and tool catalog for building integrations
Standardize how APIs and capabilities are exposed to AI agents
Define best practices for agent-tool interactions (schemas, patterns, guardrails)
Developer Portal & Knowledge Experience
Own the developer documentation platform, IA, and UX
Ensure documentation freshness and accuracy via automation (spec ↔ docs sync, drift detection)
Deliver task-oriented, cross-product integration guides
Interactive Sandbox & Exploration
Provide API exploration, testing, and simulation environments
Enable safe experimentation for developers and agents (mock + sandbox)
Sample Apps & AI Integration Kits
Build and maintain reference implementations and starter kits
Deliver agent-ready examples, prompts, and integration patterns
Define and promote “golden paths” for common integrations
Integration Acceleration (AI-first)
Develop AI-powered tools and workflows that reduce time-to-integration
Create reusable “skills” for common use cases (e.g., tax calculation flows)
Enable partners to build faster using AI-assisted approaches
DX Standards & Cross-Team Alignment
Define and drive adoption of API, MCP, and documentation standards
Partner with product teams to ensure consistent external experience
Establish versioning, deprecation, and usability guidelines
Partner Enablement & Ecosystem Growth
Lead developer onboarding and partner integration journeys
Support strategic partners with co-build and acceleration frameworks
Improve integration success rates across the ecosystem
Observability & Continuous Improvement
Define and track DX metrics (time-to-first-success, integration success rate, agent task completion)
Build feedback loops from usage, errors, and developer input
Continuously improve experience based on real-world signals
What You’ll Need To Be Successful
Education
B.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field AND 12+ years of relevant experience in developer platforms, APIs, or DX leadership roles.
Experience
- Experience leading developer platforms or DX initiatives at scale
- Experience building external platforms or partner ecosystems
- Proven ability to influence across teams
- Experience defining and driving platform standards
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- Deep understanding of API design and developer workflows
- Demonstrated experience with AI/LLM or agent-based systems
- Strong data-driven mindset
- Strong product and platform thinking
- Proven ability to influence across teams without direct ownership.
- Curiosity that uncovers opportunities where none seemingly exist.
- Customer obsession that inspires product engineering teams to reduce debt and backlog and improve overall consistency.
- Hands-on leadership mindset
- Roll-up-your-sleeves mindset with willingness to leverage the latest tools, demonstrate how things should be done, and raise the bar for your team and peers.
Avalara is an AI-first Company
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
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