Lead Product Platform Security Engineer

What You'll Do

As Avalara continues to expand its cloud platform engineering organization and AI-enabled capabilities platform security must scale in a way that enables rapid innovation while maintaining strong security controls. This role exists to lead the design implementation and adoption of platform-wide security capabilities that embed secure-by-design principles across CI/CD pipelines cloud infrastructure and runtime environments. The successful candidate will serve as a technical leader for Platform Security partnering with Product Engineering Core Services and Security teams to establish scalable security patterns influence technical direction and reduce infrastructure and software supply chain risk across Avalara’s SaaS platform. This role is ideal for a security engineer who combines deep expertise in cloud and platform security with the ability to lead complex initiatives influence technical strategy and drive security adoption across multiple engineering organizations. How This Role Elevates Avalara This Role Will Strengthen Avalara’s cloud and platform security posture through scalable security architecture automation and engineering enablement. Improve developer productivity by embedding secure-by-default capabilities directly into engineering workflows and platform services. Reduce infrastructure CI/CD and runtime risk through proactive security controls governance and security engineering best practices. Establish reusable security patterns and guardrails that scale across multiple product and engineering teams. Advance Avalara’s AI-first strategy by developing AI-enabled security capabilities that improve risk detection prioritization and response. Raise technical standards across the engineering organization through mentorship influence and domain leadership. What Your

Responsibilities

Will Be The successful candidate will Lead the design and implementation of secure-by-default platform capabilities including authentication secrets management encryption identity controls and security automation services. Establish and drive adoption of zero-trust architecture principles least-privilege access models and platform security standards across infrastructure and engineering environments. Serve as the technical lead for Platform Security initiatives providing direction prioritization and technical leadership across multiple teams and stakeholders. Act as a subject matter expert on threat modeling software supply chain security cloud security infrastructure security and secure software development practices. Drive complex cross-functional security programs with clearly defined milestones measurable outcomes and organizational impact. Develop and execute strategic remediation programs that improve security posture and reduce risk across the enterprise. Partner with engineering leaders to integrate security capabilities into development platforms CI/CD systems and cloud-native architectures. Evaluate and implement AI-enabled approaches that improve security operations vulnerability management and platform protection capabilities. Mentor engineers and help elevate platform security expertise across the broader engineering organization. 12-Month Success Signals Within The First 12 Months This Technical Leader Will Significantly improve automated security coverage across software delivery and cloud infrastructure environments. Reduce vulnerability backlog volume and remediation cycle times through scalable tooling automation and process improvements. Establish sustainable vulnerability triage and prioritization processes adopted across engineering teams. Improve signal quality and reduce false positives through contextual analysis and security engineering improvements. Lead the successful delivery of multiple platform-wide security initiatives with measurable risk reduction outcomes. Establish reusable platform security patterns and controls adopted by engineering teams across the organization. Deliver AI-enabled security capabilities that measurably improve vulnerability discovery prioritization analysis or remediation effectiveness. AI Bar Raiser Expectations At Avalara all engineers are expected to apply AI in ways that improve business outcomes. As an AI Bar Raiser this role will help shape how Platform Security leverages AI to improve security effectiveness operational scale engineering productivity and risk reduction across the organization. The Successful Candidate Will Develop and implement AI-enabled approaches that improve vulnerability discovery prioritization triage and remediation workflows. Lead the evaluation and adoption of AI technologies that strengthen platform security capabilities and operational efficiency. Identify opportunities where AI can improve detection analysis threat assessment and security decision-making. Demonstrate measurable improvements in security outcomes through AI-enabled automation and tooling. Promote responsible secure and governance-aware use of AI technologies. Mentor others and help establish best practices for AI adoption within Security and Engineering teams. Bar Raiser Expectations At Avalara we hire Bar Raisers - leaders who strengthen teams improve technical standards and increase organizational capability through their expertise and influence. As a Technical Lead within Platform Security this role is expected to elevate security engineering practices strengthen technical decision-making and improve how security is embedded across the engineering organization. The Successful Candidate Will Demonstrate exceptional ownership and accountability for platform security outcomes. Raise technical standards through architectural leadership mentorship and engineering excellence. Influence security and engineering decisions through expertise credibility and sound judgment. Drive alignment across teams to implement scalable security solutions and consistent engineering practices. Develop reusable frameworks patterns and approaches that improve security maturity across the organization. Strengthen the capabilities of other engineers through coaching collaboration and technical leadership. Leave systems teams processes and security programs stronger than they found them. What You’ll Need To Be Successful

Required Qualifications

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science Computer Engineering Electrical Engineering Mathematics or a related technical discipline. 12+ years of relevant professional experience including at least 5 years focused on cloud infrastructure or platform security. Strong programming experience in Java Go Python or similar languages used for security automation and platform engineering. Deep expertise in cloud platform security across AWS Azure Google Cloud or OCI environments. Expertise in container security Kubernetes security service mesh technologies Infrastructure as Code and cloud security posture management. Strong understanding of identity and access management network security vulnerability management runtime security and software supply chain security. Proven experience designing and integrating security tooling into CI/CD pipelines software delivery workflows and cloud-native platforms. Experience leading large-scale security initiatives involving multiple engineering teams and stakeholder groups. Strong communication and technical leadership skills with the ability to influence engineering organizations.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience securing large-scale SaaS or cloud-native platforms. Experience leading platform security or security engineering programs. Experience with AI-enabled security tooling and emerging AI security technologies. Security certifications such as CISSP CCSP GCSA or equivalent. Experience establishing security standards architecture patterns and engineering governance practices. 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 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. How We’ll Take Care Of You 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. What You Need To Know About Avalara 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.