Founding an Automation Team from Zero

Problem

Tax compliance at Lumen Technologies (formerly CenturyLink) was drowning in manual work. Analysts spent hundreds of hours weekly on repetitive data entry, spreadsheet manipulation, and filing workflows. Every process was manual, error-prone, and impossible to scale.

The tax department had no engineering support and no budget for custom software. They were a cost center expected to do more with less every year, but "more with less" had reached its limit.

Research & Discovery

While leading tax audits and planning initiatives, I started learning analytics tooling to solve my own workflow problems. I built a few automations that saved my team significant time and realized the pattern was repeatable across the entire department.

I mapped every major workflow in the tax compliance process and estimated automation potential. The math was compelling: hundreds of hours of weekly manual work that followed predictable, rule-based patterns, exactly the kind of work that could be automated without AI or complex engineering.

Approach

I identified the white space in automation, built the business case, and secured headcount to create a new function. I pitched the creation of a dedicated automation team with a clear cross-functional charter: converting manual workflows into self-service applications.

I hired a team of 3 with a mix of analytics and process design skills. We built a cloud-based platform with parameterized workflows and unattended execution, so analysts could run automations on-demand without needing to understand the underlying tooling.

Solution

The platform eventually housed 20+ self-service applications covering sales and use tax compliance workflows: filing combinations, returns processing, data transformation, and reporting. Each application was designed as a self-service tool that analysts could run independently.

We also designed tooling and training that enabled non-technical users to build their own solutions, creating a multiplier effect that grew operational capacity without proportional headcount.

Impact

The automation platform eliminated 4 FTEs worth of manual work ($500K+ annual savings), allowing the compliance team to scale operations without proportional headcount growth.

More importantly, it changed the culture. Analysts went from executing repetitive tasks to designing and optimizing workflows. The team I built became a proof point for automation ROI that influenced similar investments in other departments.

This experience, building from zero, hiring a team, and delivering measurable impact, is what led to my transition into product management. I was promoted twice in four years, from Tax Manager to Director, on the strength of identifying and executing on this opportunity.

Reflection

Founding this team taught me the fundamentals of 0-to-1 product development: identifying an unmet need, building a compelling business case, hiring the right people, and delivering incremental value fast enough to maintain organizational support.

The biggest lesson was that the hardest part of automation isn't the technology. It's changing how people think about their work. Scaling adoption by enabling non-technical users to build their own solutions created a multiplier effect that was far more valuable than anything my team could build alone.