Solution Architect - Merchandising

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others. In 2018, Costco contributed over $39 million to organizations such as United Way and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the second largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in twelve countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco consistently ranks in the top five of Forbes “America’s Best Employers”.

Costco is seeking a senior level Solution Architect to help lead the effort to modernize our Global Supply Chain systems. This role will primarily be responsible for guiding the effort to convert the business requirements and objectives into technical architecture and design that aligns to the strategies, design patterns and best practices established by the Enterprise Architecture group. The Solution Architect defines the end-to-end architecture and ensures the detailed design and implemented solutions are consistent with the overall architecture. The Solution Architect position is considered a leadership position, and the selected candidate will be able to demonstrate strength in driving issues, decisions, and initiatives to completion, as well as proficiency in soft skills such as leadership, teambuilding, collaboration, mentorship, governance, advocacy, ability to compromise, and willingness to take a strong stand where necessary. In addition to leadership skills, the ideal candidate will possess extensive Solution Architecture experience, knowledge of the Retail/Supply Chain domain, and experience in the transformation of Legacy/ERP systems at a large enterprise scale.

If you want to be a part of one of the BEST “to work for” companies in the world, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

• Designs, develops and ensures compliance to architectural standards throughout the lifecycle.
• Analyzes the Business-IT environment (run, grow, and transform the business) to detect critical deficiencies, and recommend solutions for improvement (systems of record, differentiation, and innovation).
• Identifies aging technology issues, or misalignment, with business requirements, and proposes solutions.
• Partners with Enterprise Architects for domain roadmaps and reference architecture.
• Executes projects and initiatives on the domain roadmap in partnership with Enterprise Architects.
• Consults with application and infrastructure development projects, and identifies when it is necessary to modify projects to accommodate the solution architecture.
• Ensures cohesiveness of solution designs across various projects/solutions.
• Collaborates with Enterprise Architects to balance needs between Solution Architectural Guardrails.
• Designs, develops, and directs solution architectures, design exceptions, and governance activities in compliance with target states, reference architectures, architecture standards, technology guardrails, and security and operational guidelines.
• Identifies the organizational impact (Skills, processes, structures, or culture) and financial impact of the solutions architecture.
• Creates non-functional specs for operational agility, disaster recovery, and support.
• Establishes solution delivery flow for continuous integration, testing and delivery, and operational deployment in partnership with project managers, solution leads and other stakeholders.
• Conducts design reviews to validate alignment with architecture.
• Modifies solution architecture to support changing business or technology requirements.
• Documents solutions architecture design and analysis work, and communicates architectural decisions that impact solution.
• Defines the principles, guidelines, standards, and solution patterns to ensure decisions are aligned with the enterprise's future-state architecture vision.
• Communicates infrastructure, software, information, and/solution concepts to all levels of management.
• Designs methodology that consistently yields the right level of technical design documentation and develops technical solutions that conform both to customer requirements and information development standards.
• Adheres to Costco’s Architectural Framework and Governance model.

REQUIRED

• 10+ years’ professional Information Technology experience.
• 7+ years’ hands-on architecture experience in both COTS package integration as well as large-scale custom development implementations.
• Knowledge of IT Application architecture and design methodologies across multiple platforms.
• Ability to translate technical ideas/designs to business language.
• Experience and/or knowledge in Supply Chain and Retail Industry domains.
• Strong leadership in designing and building cloud applications using cloud technologies (PaaS, IaaS), database query languages, and web programming languages under general direction.
• Proficient in service oriented architecture (SOA), messaging, object-oriented programming concepts, multi-tiered distributed component based technology, legacy infrastructure platforms and technologies, and middleware technologies.
• Thorough understanding of and experience with multiple SDLC methods.
• Excellent leadership skills
  • Proven experience leading and coordinating large projects as technical project manager or project lead.
  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
  • Strong facilitation, negotiation and conflict resolution skills.
  • Ability to interface with and influence people at multiple levels within the organization.
  • Demonstrated experience developing strong relationships with stakeholders and teams.
  • Team player. Proven ability to work effectively within a large organization that operates using a matrix organization.
• Ability to communicate trade-offs and transactional states with technical and business teams.
• Ability to make architecture changes in a dynamic agile environment.
• Ability to work with executives and technical staff.
• Able to support off-hours work as required, including weekends and holidays.

Recommended

• Solution Architecture Professional Certification (e.g., IASA CITA-F, CITA-A or higher).
• Previous experience with modernization of legacy ERP platforms.
• Other architecture certifications (e.g. TOGAF 9 certification, SEI, SAFe).
• Microsoft Azure certification preferred.

Required Documents

• Cover Letter
• Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Apart from any religious or disability considerations, open availability is needed to meet the needs of the business. If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.