Role Summary

The Technical Support Engineer is responsible for acting as the Subject Matter Expert, providing in-depth technical expertise and analysis supporting our customer base and internal Avalara departments for AvaTax and all related Connectors. This role works directly with customers to resolve complex technical issues, responds to requests in a timely manner, partners closely with Avalara engineers to drive resolution, and participates in engineering and product management discussions to improve product quality and customer outcomes.

You will document each customer contact, troubleshoot and perform root cause analysis on technical issues, escalate to engineering as needed, and manage issues through to resolution. You are expected to live by our ‘Cult of the Customer’ philosophy and will be held accountable for increasing overall customer satisfaction while contributing to an environment of accountability, growth, and operational excellence.

This role exists to ensure we can continue to support increasing AvaTax transaction volume and growing integration complexity across ERP, CRM, and eCommerce platforms while protecting SLA performance, reducing escalations, and strengthening customer retention. By combining deep technical expertise with AI-enabled workflows and continuous improvement, this position helps scale support quality as our business grows.

How This Role Elevates Avalara

• Protects revenue and retention by resolving complex customer-impacting issues quickly and accurately.
• Improves SLA adherence, CSAT, and escalation quality through deep technical expertise.
• Reduces recurring issues through root cause analysis and proactive documentation.
• Increases team leverage by embedding AI into troubleshooting workflows, knowledge creation, and case management.
• Raises talent density by mentoring Tier 1/2 engineers and improving technical rigor.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and resolve complex AvaTax and Connector technical issues, reducing escalation backlog and improving time-to-resolution.
• Perform advanced troubleshooting and root cause analysis across ERP/CRM/eCommerce platforms (NetSuite, D365, SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, Shopify, Workday, etc.).
• Maintain SLA adherence and CSAT targets through proactive case management and customer communication.
• Leverage API tools (Postman), database analysis, and data manipulation to diagnose and resolve integration issues.
• Collaborate with Engineering, QA, and Product to verify defects, improve product quality, and reduce repeat incidents.
• Contribute to scalable knowledge assets and process improvements that decrease case handling time and improve first-contact resolution.
• Use Salesforce and Jira to track trends, analyze workloads, and recommend data-driven improvements.
• Mentor peers and support continuous improvement initiatives that elevate team performance and execution quality.
• Customer Support: Provide comprehensive support to clients via phone, email, and chat, addressing inquiries related to tax services and customer accounts.

• Account Management: Manage the customer issues related to specific accounts and working with the customers to answer questions on subscriptions/contracts/products.
• Invoicing and Billing expertise : Reading the invoice and able to explain to the customer in a layman language. Troubleshooting with the accounting team for refund/cancellation scenarios.
• Issue Resolution: Identify, troubleshoot, and resolve customer issues with a focus on delivering high-quality service and customer satisfaction.
• Documentation: Accurately document all customer interactions, issues, and resolutions using Salesforce.
• Collaboration across teams: Efficiently collaborate with the teams across the company and with focus on a unified approach towards customer experience.
• Escalation Handling: Handle escalated cases with efficiency and escalate complex issues to the appropriate department when necessary.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Computer Science or Engineering.
• 4+ years of experience supporting enterprise-level SaaS solutions in a technical support capacity.
• 2+ years of direct customer-facing experience supporting international customers via phone and virtual channels.
• Strong troubleshooting and root cause analysis skills across APIs, integrations, and databases.
• Experience working with ERP/CRM/eCommerce platforms.
• Proficiency with Salesforce (case management) and Jira (defect tracking).
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work rotational shifts across multiple time zones.

Bar Raiser Expectations

We are hiring a Bar Raiser — someone who elevates the performance, standards, and technical capability of the teams they work with. This role is expected to strengthen how complex technical issues are resolved by improving execution quality, troubleshooting rigor, and overall team effectiveness.

A successful candidate will:

• Raise standards for technical troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and resolution quality

• Improve team capability through mentorship, knowledge sharing, and clear documentation

• Reduce repeat issues by driving systemic fixes and improving diagnostic approaches

• Strengthen cross-functional execution by improving clarity and collaboration with Engineering and Product

• Identify opportunities to improve processes, tools, and workflows that increase scalability and efficiency

• Leave systems, documentation, and team capability stronger than they found them

AI Expectations

We are hiring an AI Bar Raiser — someone who brings applied AI expertise to improve how technical support work is performed. This role is expected to elevate how AI is used across the team to drive faster resolution, better diagnostics, and more consistent, high-quality customer outcomes.

• Use AI tools to accelerate root cause analysis, summarize case histories, and generate high-quality knowledge base content.
• Identify automation opportunities that reduce manual troubleshooting effort.
• Quantify and demonstrate measurable improvements enabled by AI (e.g., reduced resolution time, improved documentation quality).
• Share AI best practices with peers and contribute to raising AI capability across the team.

12-Month Success Signals

• • Consistently meets or exceeds SLA targets and maintains high CSAT scores.
  • Reduces complex escalation backlog and improves average resolution time.
  • Contributes documented root-cause fixes that decrease repeat incidents.
  • Delivers measurable efficiency gains through AI-assisted workflows (e.g., reduced case handling time, improved documentation speed).
  • Actively mentors Tier 1/2 engineers and contributes to raising overall team performance.

Working Conditions

• Willingness to work US business hours, evening, or night shifts as required.
• Participation in rotational shift schedules supporting global customers.

Success in this role requires high ownership, strong judgment, continuous improvement, and the ability to simplify complex technical issues while protecting customer trust and business outcomes.

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 business challenges - improving efficiency, contributing solutions, and driving results for your team, our company, and our customers.

• You’ll grow with AI by staying curious about new trends and best practices, and by sharing what you learn so others can benefit too.

Total Rewards

In addition to a great compensation package, paid time off, and paid parental leave, many Avalara employees are eligible for bonuses.

Health & Wellness
Benefits vary by location but generally include private medical, life, and disability insurance.

Inclusive culture and diversity
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.

We’re defining the relationship between tax and tech.

We’ve already built an industry-leading cloud compliance platform, processing over 54 billion customer API calls and over 6.6 million tax returns a year. Our growth is real - we're a billion dollar business - and we’re not slowing down until we’ve achieved our mission - to be part of every transaction in the world.

We’re bright, innovative, and disruptive, like the orange we love to wear. It captures our quirky spirit and optimistic mindset. It shows off the culture we’ve designed, that empowers our people to win. We’ve been different from day one. Join us, and your career will be too.

We’re An Equal Opportunity Employer

Supporting diversity and inclusion is a cornerstone of our company — we don’t want people to fit into our culture, but to enrich it. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, age, gender, national orientation, disability, sexual orientation, US Veteran status, or any other factor protected by law. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know.