How to Apply to Avalara

11 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 176 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Avalara is the market leader in transaction tax compliance automation, headquartered in Seattle with roughly 4,500 employees and approximately $900 million in annual revenue.
  • The company was taken private in August 2022 for $8.4 billion by a Vista Equity Partners-led consortium; the former NYSE ticker AVLR no longer trades.
  • Careers live at careers.avalara.com but the ATS is iCIMS, operating on avalara.icims.com. Optimize your resume and keywords for iCIMS parsing and Boolean search.
  • Under private equity ownership, expect a sharper operating cadence, closer attention to metrics, and tighter headcount discipline alongside continued investment in AI tax content, international expansion, and cross-border e-commerce.
  • Hiring is broad: software engineering (Java, Python, Scala, data pipelines), product, tax research (EA, CPA, JD, LLM), customer success, field and inside sales, partner sales, and operations roles including Salesforce integration specialists.
  • Interview loops typically run 3 to 5 rounds: recruiter screen, hiring manager, then a panel loop tailored to function with domain-specific technical or tax-content assessments.
  • Seattle-market tech compensation applies broadly, with offices also in Durham NC, the UK, India (large engineering footprint), and Brazil; remote and hybrid roles exist but vary by team.
  • The tax-compliance domain is niche and the learning curve is real, which is precisely why careers at Avalara tend to be durable; domain expertise compounds and is portable across the industry.

About Avalara

Avalara, Inc. is the market leader in transaction tax compliance automation, a category most job seekers have never heard of but one that quietly powers the checkout flow of a very large share of online commerce. Headquartered at 255 S King Street in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood, Avalara employs roughly 4,500 people across the United States, Europe, India, and Latin America, generating approximately $900 million in annual revenue at the time of its take-private transaction. The company was co-founded in 2004 by Scott McFarlane, Rory Rawlings, and Jared Vogt, and McFarlane still serves as Chief Executive Officer today, an unusually long tenure for a SaaS CEO and a meaningful signal about the company's cultural continuity. Avalara's flagship product is AvaTax, a cloud sales-and-use tax determination engine that calculates the correct tax for a transaction based on jurisdictional rules, product taxability, customer exemption status, and sourcing logic. That sounds dry until you realize the United States alone has more than 13,000 taxing jurisdictions, each with its own rates, rules, and holidays, and that those rules change roughly a thousand times a year. Layer on VAT and GST compliance across Europe, the UK, and emerging markets, cross-border customs and duty calculation for e-commerce, 1099 reporting, business license management, exemption certificate handling, communications tax, lodging tax, and excise tax, and you begin to understand why Avalara's engineering and tax research teams are structured around a tax content engine that functions more like a continuously updated legal knowledge graph than a static rules table. In August 2022, Avalara was taken private in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $8.4 billion by a consortium led by Vista Equity Partners, with participation from a subsidiary of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The stock previously traded on the NYSE under the ticker AVLR. Candidates evaluating Avalara in 2026 should factor this ownership structure into their expectations. Vista is a well-known private equity firm with a reputation for operational rigor, metrics-driven management, disciplined spending, and a focus on profitability and efficiency alongside growth. For employees this has translated into tighter budget cycles, more scrutiny on headcount, a sharper focus on retention of strategic accounts, and the kind of operating cadence common across the Vista portfolio. That is neither good nor bad on its own, but it is materially different from the hypergrowth stage Avalara was in as a public company, and applicants should go in with their eyes open. Against that backdrop, Avalara has leaned hard into three growth vectors that shape current hiring. The first is artificial intelligence applied to tax content: using large language models and machine learning to accelerate the research, classification, and publication pipeline that keeps AvaTax accurate, as well as AI-assisted product features for customers. The second is international expansion, with notable investment in the United Kingdom, India (large engineering presence), and Brazil, driven by VAT, GST, and local invoicing regimes. The third is cross-border e-commerce, where the intersection of customs, duties, and sales tax creates a compounding moat for customers scaling globally. A fourth quieter theme, Salesforce integration work and broader embedding into partner platforms like NetSuite, Shopify, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and Workday, shows up frequently in current job postings.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Start at careers

    Start at careers.avalara.com, which is Avalara's public-facing employer brand site. The search functionality and job detail pages are powered by Avalara's iCIMS instance; when you click 'Apply,' you are handed off to avalara.icims.com, Avalara's dedicated iCIMS tenant.

  2. 2
    Create a candidate account on the iCIMS portal

    Create a candidate account on the iCIMS portal. Avalara uses iCIMS' standard candidate profile with resume upload, profile parsing, and the ability to track applications across multiple requisitions. Use a real email address you will actually check, because interview scheduling and recruiter communication flow through it.

  3. 3
    Upload a clean, ATS-friendly resume

    Upload a clean, ATS-friendly resume. iCIMS parses your resume into structured fields (work history, education, skills), and you can then edit the parsed data. Review the parsed output carefully before submitting because what iCIMS extracts is often what recruiters and hiring managers search against internally.

  4. 4
    Answer the application questions honestly

    Answer the application questions honestly. Expect the standard US work authorization questions, voluntary EEO/self-identification questions, and role-specific knockout questions (for example, 'Do you have X years of experience with Workday Tax'). Knockout questions are real; do not overstate.

  5. 5
    After submission, expect an automated confirmation email from the iCIMS system

    After submission, expect an automated confirmation email from the iCIMS system. A recruiter screen typically follows within one to three weeks for active requisitions, though niche tax-content and senior engineering roles can take longer as hiring managers calibrate on who they actually need.

  6. 6
    The recruiter screen is usually 30 minutes by phone or Zoom, covering your backg

    The recruiter screen is usually 30 minutes by phone or Zoom, covering your background, motivations, compensation expectations, work authorization, and a high-level fit conversation. Be ready to articulate why Avalara specifically, not just why SaaS.

  7. 7
    Next is a hiring manager conversation focused on the role's scope, your prior ow

    Next is a hiring manager conversation focused on the role's scope, your prior ownership of similar problems, and deeper behavioral questions. For engineering tracks this is often where a lightweight technical screen (design discussion or coding exercise) is introduced.

  8. 8
    The onsite loop, usually conducted over Zoom with optional Seattle or Durham NC

    The onsite loop, usually conducted over Zoom with optional Seattle or Durham NC office visits for finalists, typically includes 3 to 5 panels. Engineering candidates see coding, system design, a domain or tax-content deep dive, and a behavioral or values panel. Non-engineering candidates see a mix of role-play (for sales), case or portfolio review (for product and design), tax-research work samples (for enrolled agents and tax content roles), and cross-functional panels.

  9. 9
    Offer and background check follow

    Offer and background check follow. Avalara uses a standard US background check vendor and, for roles touching financial or customer data, may run additional compliance checks. Reference calls are typical at the final stage.

  10. 10
    Track your application status inside the iCIMS portal

    Track your application status inside the iCIMS portal. Status labels like 'Under Review,' 'Submitted,' or 'No Longer Under Consideration' all have meanings, but recruiters are the real source of truth; a polite check-in email after two weeks of silence is appropriate.

Resume Tips for Avalara

recommended

Write for iCIMS parsing first, human readers second

Write for iCIMS parsing first, human readers second. Use a single-column layout, standard section headers ('Experience,' 'Education,' 'Skills'), reverse-chronological structure, and widely-supported fonts like Calibri, Arial, or Helvetica at 10 to 12 point. Avoid tables, text boxes, headers/footers with critical information, and graphics that hide content from the parser.

recommended

Save and submit as

Save and submit as .docx unless the posting explicitly says PDF. iCIMS parses Word documents more reliably than PDFs, especially PDFs exported from design tools. ResumeGeni's Word output is tuned for exactly this use case.

recommended

Mirror the job description's vocabulary in your resume, specifically for the ski

Mirror the job description's vocabulary in your resume, specifically for the skills and tools section. If the posting says 'Kafka,' do not write 'streaming platforms.' If it says 'OneSource' or 'Vertex,' use those exact product names. iCIMS keyword search is literal.

recommended

For tax content, research, and compliance roles, list your credentials prominent

For tax content, research, and compliance roles, list your credentials prominently (EA, CPA, JD, LLM in Tax, CMI) near your name. Include jurisdictional depth explicitly ('US multistate sales and use tax, 50 states + DC,' 'EU VAT across 27 member states,' 'Indian GST').

recommended

For software engineering roles, name specific languages, frameworks, cloud provi

For software engineering roles, name specific languages, frameworks, cloud providers, and data technologies. Avalara's stack varies by team but commonly includes Java, Python, Scala, C#/.NET for legacy surfaces, AWS, Kafka, Spark, Snowflake or Redshift, microservices on Kubernetes, and a mix of SQL and NoSQL stores. Name the ones you actually have depth in.

recommended

Quantify impact

Quantify impact. For every role, show a number: transactions processed per day, revenue under management, accounts retained, deals closed, latency reduced, tax returns filed. Avalara operates at scale; numbers signal that you do too.

recommended

Highlight experience with tax, finance, e-commerce, ERP, or marketplace platform

Highlight experience with tax, finance, e-commerce, ERP, or marketplace platforms, even adjacent exposure. NetSuite, SAP, Workday, Oracle, Salesforce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Amazon Seller Central, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Vertex, and Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE are all recognized signals.

recommended

Call out experience with data-intensive systems if you have it

Call out experience with data-intensive systems if you have it. The tax content engine ingests, normalizes, and publishes enormous volumes of rule changes, and engineers who have built similar ingestion, classification, or publishing pipelines will stand out.

recommended

Do not hide career transitions

Do not hide career transitions. Avalara has a meaningful population of employees who came from Big 4 accounting, state revenue departments, or in-house corporate tax, and then moved into SaaS. Tell that story plainly.

recommended

Keep it to one or two pages

Keep it to one or two pages. Senior engineering and senior sales candidates can go to two; most others should fit one. iCIMS will accept longer, but hiring managers at a PE-owned company are time-poor and value signal density.

ATS System: iCIMS Talent Cloud

Avalara uses iCIMS, one of the most widely deployed enterprise ATS platforms in North America. The candidate-facing portal lives at avalara.icims.com and powers the apply flow behind careers.avalara.com. iCIMS handles resume parsing, candidate database search, workflow stages, EEO data collection, offer management, and background check integration. For candidates this means your resume is parsed into structured fields the moment you submit, and recruiters at Avalara search a shared talent database with Boolean queries against that structured data.

  • Upload your resume in .docx format when the option exists; iCIMS parses Word more cleanly than PDF.
  • After the parser runs, review every extracted field (job titles, dates, employers, education) and fix mistakes before you submit. Parsing errors become permanent in the recruiter's view unless you correct them.
  • Use exact keyword matches from the job description in your Skills section and bullet points. iCIMS keyword search does not stem aggressively or synonym-expand.
  • Fill in every optional profile field iCIMS offers, especially work authorization, location preferences, and desired role family. Recruiters use these filters to narrow huge candidate pools.
  • When you apply to multiple Avalara requisitions, iCIMS links them to one candidate profile. Keep your profile current because the version of the resume attached to your latest application is what recruiters see first.
  • Do not apply to more than two or three roles simultaneously. Shotgun applications are visible to recruiters and signal a lack of focus. Pick the roles that genuinely fit and invest in a tailored resume for each.
  • Enable email notifications so you do not miss status updates, interview invitations, or assessment links. Check spam; some iCIMS automated emails land there.
  • If you were previously considered for a role at Avalara, your profile and notes from that process remain in iCIMS. Prior performance (positive or negative) carries forward, so treat every touchpoint as consequential.

Interview Culture

Avalara's interview culture is professional, structured, and substantive, with meaningful variation by function.

Engineering interviews emphasize real-world pragmatism over whiteboard algorithm puzzles; expect coding problems rooted in data processing, API design, or service reliability, plus a system design round where interviewers probe how you reason about throughput, correctness, and failure modes at scale. Candidates consistently report that Avalara engineers care as much about how you make trade-offs as about whether you get the 'right' answer, and that the domain (taxation rules that are legally binding and must be correct) is taken seriously in design conversations. Tax content and tax research interviews have their own character. Candidates should expect to be handed a real or realistic tax scenario and asked to walk through how they would research it, where they would look, how they would document their conclusion, and how they would handle ambiguity. Credentials matter here (EA, CPA, JD, state-specific licensure) but the practical ability to produce defensible, cited research under time pressure matters more. If you have authored a bulletin, a client memo, or a technical taxability determination, bring it. Product management and product marketing interviews include a take-home or onsite case about a feature or positioning problem, often tied to an actual compliance pain point. Sales interviews, for field, inside, and partner sales tracks, include a role-play or mock discovery call; candidates who prepare by studying AvaTax, Avalara Returns, and one or two industry solutions outperform those who wing it. Customer success and implementation interviews focus on ERP integration experience (NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics loom large) and on your ability to manage a portfolio of customers through complex onboarding. Behavioral rounds across all tracks tend to map to Avalara's core values, which emphasize customer obsession, ownership, simplicity, and continuous improvement. Under Vista Equity Partners ownership, there is also more explicit attention to metrics, operating cadence, and efficiency, which shows up in interview questions like 'tell me about a time you had to deliver a measurable outcome under a fixed budget' or 'how do you prioritize when everything is P1.' Answering with specific, quantified examples using a STAR structure tends to land well. The overall bar is high but fair, and candidates repeatedly describe the process as respectful of their time. Decisions tend to come within one to two weeks after the final round.

What Avalara Looks For

  • Demonstrated ownership of complex, ambiguous problems from start to measurable outcome, not just participation in someone else's project.
  • Comfort operating in a private equity-owned SaaS environment where efficiency, metrics, and disciplined growth coexist with real product ambition.
  • For engineering: deep competence in at least one of Java, Python, Scala, or C#/.NET, with real experience in data-intensive systems and cloud-native architectures on AWS.
  • For tax roles: current credentials (EA, CPA, JD, LLM, CMI) plus hands-on experience producing defensible research on US multistate sales tax, VAT, GST, or cross-border customs.
  • For sales: a verifiable track record of quota attainment in SaaS, ideally with mid-market and enterprise finance or tax buyers, and the ability to navigate multi-stakeholder deals involving IT, finance, and tax teams.
  • For product and design: fluency with the actual workflows of accountants, controllers, and tax directors, not just generic SaaS product instincts.
  • Integration and ecosystem experience: NetSuite, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle, Workday, Shopify, Salesforce, and similar platforms are high-signal line items.
  • Clear written communication. Avalara operates across multiple geographies and time zones, and async written clarity is load-bearing.
  • Comfort with ambiguity and with learning a heavily domain-specific business. Tax is a moat precisely because most people do not want to learn it; the people who do tend to thrive at Avalara.
  • Alignment with Avalara's stated cultural emphasis on customer obsession, simplicity in solving hard problems, and continuous improvement rather than heroics.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Avalara use and how should I tailor my application for it?
Avalara uses iCIMS Talent Cloud, with the candidate portal hosted at avalara.icims.com. Submit a .docx resume with a simple single-column layout, use exact keywords from the job posting in your skills section, and carefully review the parsed fields iCIMS extracts before you submit. iCIMS keyword search is literal, so match the specific terms (product names, languages, certifications) the posting uses.
Is Avalara still publicly traded?
No. Avalara was taken private in August 2022 in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $8.4 billion, led by Vista Equity Partners with participation from CPP Investments. The company previously traded on the NYSE under ticker AVLR; those shares were delisted as part of the transaction.
What should I know about working at a Vista Equity Partners portfolio company?
Vista is known for operational rigor, clear KPIs, disciplined spending, and a focus on profitability and efficient growth. Expect structured operating cadences, metric-driven reviews, and a tighter scrutiny on headcount and budgets than you might see at a hypergrowth public SaaS company. Many employees find this clarity motivating; others prefer a looser environment. Go in with realistic expectations.
Where are Avalara's main offices and does the company hire remote?
The headquarters is at 255 S King Street in Seattle's Pioneer Square. Avalara also maintains a significant presence in Durham, North Carolina, along with offices in the United Kingdom, India (a large engineering hub), and Brazil. Remote and hybrid roles exist but policy varies by team and function; the specific job posting will state the expectation, and recruiters will confirm in the initial screen.
What does the interview process look like at Avalara?
A typical process has a recruiter screen (30 minutes), a hiring manager conversation, and then a 3 to 5 panel loop tailored to your function. Engineering panels include coding, system design, a domain or tax-content discussion, and behavioral. Tax content and research roles include a practical research exercise. Sales roles include a role-play. Product and design include a case or portfolio review. Decisions generally come within one to two weeks of the final round.
How technical do I need to be for non-engineering roles at Avalara?
More technical than at a generic SaaS company, but not deeply so. For tax content, product, customer success, and even sales roles, you should be able to speak clearly about how AvaTax fits into an e-commerce checkout, how tax rules change, what an ERP integration looks like, and how data flows between systems. You do not need to code, but you should be able to have an informed conversation about APIs, data integrity, and system integration.
What credentials help for tax research and tax content roles?
The most common credentials among tax content and research hires are Enrolled Agent (EA), Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Juris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws in Taxation (LLM), and Certified Member of the Institute (CMI). Jurisdictional depth matters as much as the letters after your name; explicit experience with US multistate sales and use tax, EU VAT, Indian GST, Brazilian indirect tax, or customs and duty classification is strong signal.
What are the biggest current hiring themes at Avalara in 2026?
Three themes dominate. First, AI applied to tax content, meaning engineers and tax researchers who can work at the intersection of large language models and regulatory data. Second, international expansion, especially in the United Kingdom, India, and Brazil, which drives VAT, GST, and local invoicing compliance hiring. Third, cross-border e-commerce and customs, which continues to grow as more US merchants sell internationally. Salesforce ecosystem and partner integration roles are also consistently open.
How should I talk about Avalara in an interview?
Demonstrate that you understand what the company actually does beyond the one-line pitch. The best candidates can articulate why transaction tax is hard (13,000+ US jurisdictions, constantly changing rules, legal liability for errors), why Avalara's model works (broad integration footprint plus deep tax content), and why this particular role ladders into those realities. Avoid generic 'I want to work at a mission-driven SaaS' language; it signals you did not do the homework.
What compensation should I expect?
Compensation benchmarks are consistent with Seattle-area tech SaaS for engineering and product, with geographic differentials for Durham, UK, India, and Brazil hires. Sales roles have OTE structures typical of enterprise SaaS with meaningful variable components. Under Vista ownership, equity grants are structured around private-company valuation rather than public stock, so ask the recruiter to walk through the equity program, vesting, and any liquidity expectations in detail before you accept.

Open Positions

Avalara currently has 176 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 176 open positions at Avalara

Related Resources

Similar Companies

Sources

  1. Avalara Careers (public careers portal) —
  2. Avalara iCIMS Candidate Portal —
  3. Avalara Corporate Site —
  4. Avalara to be Acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $8.4 Billion (press release) —
  5. Avalara Leadership, Scott McFarlane profile —
  6. AvaTax product overview —
  7. Vista Equity Partners portfolio —
  8. iCIMS Talent Cloud platform overview —