Sr. Manager, Workday

What You'll Do
The Senior Manager of People Technology leads the day-to-day delivery, optimization, and governance of Avalara's Workday platform. This role leads a team of Workday experts to design, build, and support scalable solutions across the employee lifecycle, including HCM, Talent, Performance, Advanced Compensation, Absence/Time Off, Benefits, Payroll, Recruiting (ATS), and Extend. They translate business priorities into a practical roadmap, ensure smooth execution of releases and annual cycles, and partner closely with People & Culture, Talent Acquisition, and Finance to deliver a reliable, user-friendly system for employees and managers.
How This Role Elevates Avalara
- Strengthens People Technology capability by building and coaching a high-performing Workday team with deep functional and technical expertise.
- Reduces operational friction by simplifying Workday processes and establishing clear runbooks, standards, and governance so the team can execute with higher velocity and fewer escalations.
- Creates a culture of innovation by encouraging analysts and partners to proactively surface automation, AI, and process-improvement opportunities across Workday.

Elevates the Business
- Accelerates efficiency goals by redesigning Workday workflows and identifying automation opportunities that meaningfully reduce manual work for employees, managers, Talent Acquisition, and the People & Culture teams.
- Improves decision quality through reliable people data, consistent configuration, and accessible reporting that leaders can trust for headcount, hiring, and talent planning decisions.
- Supports scalable growth and M&A by designing Workday capabilities that can be extended to new entities, roles, and geographies without bespoke rework.
- Strengthens control and readiness by improving Workday security, auditability, and process discipline in support of SOX, risk management, and IPO readiness.

Elevates the Customer Experience
- Enhances the employee experience by making Workday easier to use; simplifying tasks like hiring, transfers, performance, compensation, and leave so employees and managers can complete work with fewer clicks and less confusion.
- Improves end-to-end workflows and processes to create a more intuitive, seamless experience for employees and greater transparency for all stakeholders.
- Reduces support needs by designing processes, navigation, and in-system guidance that minimize support tickets.

What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Platform ownership & delivery
- Serve as product owner for Workday across key modules (e.g., Core HCM, Talent/Performance, Compensation, Absence/Time Off, Benefits, Recruiting/ATS).
- Drive the end-to-end delivery of major Workday initiatives (e.g., ATS implementation, global process redesigns, new modules), including design, configuration oversight, testing, and deployment.
- Manage integration teams to ensure robust, monitored integrations between Workday and downstream systems (payroll, benefits, identity, recruiting tools, analytics platforms).

Governance, controls, and security
- Define and maintain Workday configuration standards, security model principles, and business process design guidelines.
- Own Workday change governance (design reviews, approvals, release planning) and ensure alignment with SOX, privacy, and security requirements.
- Coordinate Workday audits, access reviews, and control testing with Audit, Security, and Compliance.

Operational excellence
- Oversee day-to-day Workday operations and ensure SLAs for incidents, enhancements, and data corrections are met.
- Define and track operational KPIs (e.g., ticket volume, cycle time, incident recurrence, adoption) and lead continuous improvement efforts.
- Ensure high-quality documentation for processes, configuration decisions, and runbooks.

People leadership
- Manage and develop a high-performing Workday team (analysts, configuration specialists, and/or vendor resources), with clear goals, co