Principal Software Engineer

About the Role: Principal Software Engineer, Connectors & Integrations

Avalara is building the world's cloud compliance platform, and our Connectors/Integration team ensures it works everywhere our customers operate. You will lead high-quality connector development between Avalara services (AvaTax, ELR) and major enterprise systems like SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Shopify, and Magento.

Your Responsibilities

• Champion AI-First Engineering: Leverage code assist, test generation, and runbook summarization to boost productivity and quality while delivering faster time-to-value for global clients.
• Architect Scalable Integrations: Define canonical patterns for authN/Z (OAuth2/OIDC), retries/idempotency, versioning, webhooks, rate limiting, and back-pressure across diverse connector codebases.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Collaborate with Product, Security, and SRE to translate business flows into scalable contracts and SLAs that meet strict regulatory needs.
• Operability & Observability: Instrument connectors for metrics, tracing, and structured logs. Lead incident post-mortems and establish golden signals for a resilient platform.
• Mentorship Strategy: Act as a hands-on technical leader performing deep design reviews, pairing on complex threads, and guiding build-vs-buy decisions (SDK vs. iPaaS) across multiple teams.

Technical Requirements

We are looking for an expert with 15+ years of experience in large-scale integrations between heterogeneous systems. You must possess deep knowledge of:

• API Design: REST/gRPC, JSON/XML data interchange (EDI familiarity is a plus).
• Event-Driven Architecture: Mastery of queues/streams (Kafka/SQS) and idempotent workflows.
• Polyglot Skills: Proficiency in Java, C#, Go, Node.js, or Python with an insistence on rigorous testing culture.
• Cloud-Native Fundamentals: Containers/Kubernetes, Terraform (IaC), CI/CD pipelines, and security best practices.

The AI-First Culture

Avalara is embedded in our DNA. Success here requires embracing GenAI as an essential capability to accelerate engineering workflows—whether for code generation, test automation, or creating agentic partner experiences with platforms like Workday and SAP.
You will grow by staying curious about new trends, applying AI daily to business challenges, and sharing insights to elevate the entire team.

Benefits & Values

• Total Rewards: Competitive compensation including bonuses, paid time off, parental leave, medical/dental/life/disability insurance.
• Inclusive Culture: We support 8 employee-run resource groups with executive sponsorship to enrich our diverse workforce.