Solution Architect - LTL & Fulfillment Platform Operations at Costco in Issaquah, WA

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen 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 ranks eighth in Forbes “World’s Best Employers”.

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.

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

Solution Architects create IT architecture & design solutions based on business requirements, industry trends, and technology options. Solution Architects are responsible and accountable for the solution architecture in partnership with enterprise architects, domain architects, and engineering teams. Solution Architects partner with the delivery team for solution planning, delivery, detailed design and implemented solutions. Solution Architects ensure the implemented solutions are consistent with the approved architecture. Solution Architects communicate, mentor, and lead teams based on program or project needs for solution delivery.

The LTLF Operations Solution Architect will be responsible for creating IT architecture and designing solutions based on business requirements. This architect will service LTL, Fulfillment, and Supply Chain areas. This Solution Architect will define the end-to-end architecture and ensure the detailed design and implemented solutions are consistent and operational. This role works in collaboration with Engineers, Enterprise Architects, and Solution Architects in cross functional teams. They will also partner with business stakeholders and delivery teams for solution planning, design creation, and implementing solutions. This Solution Architect will ensure implemented solutions are consistent with approved architecture, continually advance technology, and follow industry best practices. This role will also be responsible for communicating, mentoring, and leading teams based on program or project needs for solution delivery.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, 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).

● 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.

● Researches and understands technical requirements, trends, and strategies for Supply Chain initiatives.

● Assesses all project information to understand the scope, the current IT and business environment, objectives, and priorities.

● Analyzes technical risks and advises on risk mitigation strategies.

● Identifies teams needed based on the proposed solutions.

● Works with stakeholders and Delivery Managers to develop product roadmaps, timelines, resource plans, and budget.

● Owns the technical content (architecture and design), integrity, and quality of solution.

● Oversees the delivery of the solution as specified by requirements and architecture.

● Identifies new technologies and development tools as required.

● Analyzes available assets (frameworks, reference architectures, etc.) to detect critical deficiencies and bridge the gap between the as-is architecture and the to-be architecture.

● Defines system use cases and requirements.

● Evaluates non-functional requirements for testability and technical acceptance criteria.

● Addresses compliance requirements, such as Payment Card Industry (PCI), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Personally Identifiable Information (PII), and Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX).

● Creates high-level models that guide solution architecture, including networking, component, context, data-flow security, data, services, infrastructure, deployment, and integration viewpoints.

● Creates transitional architecture views as part of solution design.

● Adheres to IT standards.

● Defines and documents the actions needed to close architecture gaps in support of business objectives.

● Participates in and conducts reviews of the designs, prototypes, and other technical deliverables to ensure they fulfill requirements and meet standards.

● Estimates development effort.

REQUIRED

● Solution Architecture Professional Certification (e.g., IASA CITA-F, CITA-A or higher), other architecture certifications (e.g. TOGAF 9 certification, SEI).

● 10+ years’ professional Information Technology experience.

● 7+ years’ hands-on architecture with broad COTS package integration experience.

● Experience working in and leading the design of architectures for ERP, MRP, WMS, and other Fulfillment solutions.

● Experience in leading the implementation of Inventory Management, Fulfillment, Logistics, Ecommerce, and ERP systems.

● Proficient in service oriented architecture (SOA), messaging, object-oriented programming concepts, multi-tiered distributed component based technology, legacy infrastructure platforms and technologies, and enterprise service bus.

● Subject matter expert in Cloud and On-Premise technologies.

● Strong leadership in designing and building cloud applications using cloud technologies (PaaS, IaaS), database query languages, and web programming languages under general direction.

● Proficient at modeling at 3 levels of abstraction: conceptual, logical, physical.

● Demonstrated experience with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery.

● Strong experience architecting Cloud Solutions, provisioning and managing cloud services as required.

● Excellent troubleshooting skills and the ability to logically think through problem situations.

● Solid understanding of application architecture, network technologies, application and infrastructure security, and infrastructure architecture.

● High integrity, accountability, a positive attitude, and willingness to do what it takes to make the team successful.

● Team player, good interpersonal, organizational, and communication skills. Creative, likes challenges.

● Able to support off-hours work as required, including weekends and holidays.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursement account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to IT-Recruiting@costco.com

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States.

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