Tax & Compliance Manager, VCS

What You'll Do
The Tax & Compliance Manager, VCS leads a team of Tax Associates who deliver Premium Sales Tax Risk Assessments (PSTRA), Voluntary Disclosure Agreements (VDAs), and historical compliance engagements for Avalara customers across multiple jurisdictions. As transaction volumes grow and voluntary disclosure work scales, this role ensures consistent SLA and quality performance across a paired Tax Associate/State Data delivery model, develops and retains high-performing talent, and embeds AI-enabled workflows into day-to-day team operations.

Why This Role Matters
For our customers: Your team delivers timely, accurate compliance work that protects customers from penalties, interest, and audit exposure.
For the business: You'll reduce unnecessary escalations and rework, surface opportunities for automation, and help keep our cost-to-serve in check — all without compromising quality.
For the team: You'll be the kind of manager people remember. Through coaching, clear expectations, and consistent recognition, you'll build engagement, deepen expertise, and create real career paths.
For the practice: You'll actively push us forward by embedding AI-assisted workflows into how the team operates and sharing what works with the broader VCS organization.
What Your Responsibilities Will Be
Leading the Team
Coach and develop a team of Tax Associates delivering sales tax risk assessments, voluntary disclosure agreements, and historical compliance filings across multiple states.

Set clear expectations and hold the team accountable to our client response standards, including our 48-hour turnaround commitment and on-time delivery of state submissions and returns.

Lead hiring, onboarding, and structured training for new team members — hiring for high standards and developing those with the strongest potential for growth within VCS.

Serve as the escalation point for complex client issues, state authority inquiries, or internal cross-functional questions the team can't resolve on their own.

Driving Operational Excellence
Partner closely with the Practice Director on capacity planning, reporting, billing oversight, and overall practice health.

Document and standardize how the team works — building out clear process guides that make quality repeatable and the customer experience consistent.

Identify, pilot, and scale automation and AI-assisted tools within the team (such as data validation, status tracking, research support, and template generation), and measure their impact on productivity and quality.

Use AI tools to improve your own management effectiveness — whether that's synthesizing performance data, running operational reviews, or spotting workload patterns before they become problems.

Building Relationships and Alignment
Maintain strong working relationships across Project Managers, Data Consultants, Tax Associates, State Activities leads, Tax Directors, Sales, and Account Management — keeping everyone aligned on scope, timelines, risk, and client outcomes.

Ensure team process documentation (covering data intake, nexus validation, account reconciliation, disclosure submission, return preparation, notice handling, and file closeout) is thorough, current, and consistently followed.

Contributing to the Broader Practice
Act as a subject-matter resource for other Professional Services teams when needed.

Share insights, tools, and process improvements with VCS leadership to help raise the bar across the practice.

What You’ll Need To Be Successful
Requirements
A Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Finance, or a related field.

At least 5 years of sales and use tax consulting or compliance experience — including time spent leading a team or serving in a team lead role.

Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel and comfort working with data transformation; you know how to make data tell a story.

Hands-on experience using Salesforce (or a comparable project management or CRM platform) to track pipelines, tasks, and reporting.

A demonstrated track record of using AI tools to make your team's work faster, more accurate, or easier to scale — whether in research, documentation, data analysis, or reporting. Just as important: the ability to coach others through adoption so the whole team benefits.

Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal. You're comfortable presenting to clients, navigating conversations with state taxing authorities, and collaborating across Sales, Operations, and other internal teams.

A high bar for quality and professionalism. You set the standard and hold it — for yourself and your team.

Preferred: Hands-on experience leading the full voluntary compliance process — including nexus studies, voluntary disclosure agreements, and sales tax risk assessments — across multiple states and local jurisdictions.

Preferred: Regional or national public accounting experience in a state or local tax practice, and experience managing teams that work across different locations or time zones.