About the Role

We are looking for a hands-on, forward-thinking Solution Architect to lead the design and delivery of innovative technology solutions that drive value across our retail planning and digital product creation functions. In this strategic role, you will act as the critical bridge between business goals and technical execution, guiding solutions from inception through deployment.

What You'll Do

• Architect End-to-End Solutions: Design scalable, resilient, and secure systems supporting Digital Product Creation, Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP), Assortment Planning, Buy Planning, and Allocation.

• Stakeholder Collaboration: Partner with business, product, and engineering teams to align solution architectures with strategic objectives.

• Technical Leadership: Provide hands-on guidance to engineering teams, conduct design and code reviews, and promote best practices in development and DevOps.

• Integration & Data Strategy: Ensure robust integration via REST APIs, GraphQL, event-driven messaging (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ), and secure ETL pipelines while enforcing data governance and compliance.

• Technology Evaluation: Assess and recommend tools, platforms, and vendors to meet evolving architectural and business needs.

• Cloud-Native Enablement: Promote modern software paradigms such as microservices, 12-factor app design, containers, and CI/CD pipelines using Azure and/or GCP.

• Governance & Compliance: Ensure architectural compliance with enterprise standards and contribute to architecture review boards.

• Pre-Sales & Vendor Engagement: Support RFIs, RFPs, and vendor evaluations by articulating architectural strategies and solution benefits.

Who You Are

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with at least 3 years in solution or enterprise architecture.

• Deep knowledge of retail planning workflows including preseason planning, in-season management, open-to-buy, and store clustering.

• Proven expertise in designing distributed systems using Domain-Driven Design (DDD), event-driven architecture, and technologies such as Java, Spring Boot, RDBMS, and document databases.

• Strong experience with cloud platforms such as Azure and/or GCP.

• Solid understanding of integration protocols and architectures (REST, GraphQL, Kafka, RabbitMQ).

• Excellent communication and leadership skills with a demonstrated ability to influence both technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred:

• Experience with data platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, or similar.

• Familiarity with modern DevOps practices and tooling (CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code).

• Knowledge of AI/ML applications in retail forecasting, inventory optimization, or personalization.

• Experience in vendor and SaaS solution evaluation and integration.