Grainger is North America’s leading Maintenance Repair & Operating provider and we are the 10th largest North American E-commerce player with over 50% of our revenue coming from online transactions. Within the Enterprise Systems team we use technology to support the ever-changing and dynamic needs of a supply chain carrying 1.5 million products and an employee base of 25,000+; and we are committed to delivering technical solutions to support the business in its mission to stay atop. We deliver technology solutions across the enterprise including our call centers, branch network, sales, and our various digital channels. The team supports over 1000 applications across the network and operates in an agile environment to deliver complex solutions quickly and seamlessly. The team of 500+ is comprised of Infrastructure + Operations, Cyber Security, Technology Planning, Architecture and Engineering and are built in a way to support the dynamic and ever changing customer landscape.

General Description

Architects develop technology strategies, create technology roadmaps, and select specific technologies. Architects provide a holistic, long-term, and proactive perspective on technology and its use. They bring deep technical expertise, and a thorough knowledge and understanding of the IT capabilities necessary to deliver business value through technology.

Architects work collaboratively with business stakeholders to evolve and align the technology vision and roadmap with business capabilities; provide Engineers with conceptual and logical designs; provide design guidance and guardrails; define transition paths; and provide ongoing governance.

Major responsibilities and deliverables include creating a technology strategy and guiding principles, creating and maintaining capability and lifecycle roadmaps, providing architectural governance, modeling business capabilities, defining current and future state, and creating conceptual, logical and physical designs. Architects are also responsible for technology evaluation and selection, as well as technology evolution. Architects identify major system interfaces, business capability needs, and existing weaknesses and opportunities for continuous improvement.

Serving as an Architect requires an individual to be a self-starter, working both independently and as part of a team. They must have strong communication skills and the ability to translate high-level business concepts into tangible technology concepts. They are responsible for educating and guiding others on architectural standards, principles, methodology and trends. They must have significant technical knowledge and have expertise within one or more areas of business, data, applications and technology. They must be highly disciplined in their approach to modeling architectures, and maintaining the documentation on an ongoing basis. They are expected to mentor and coach less experienced staff and provide knowledge transfer across the organization.

1. Solutions Architecture (SA) — Solution Architects partner with Enterprise Architects, Analysts and Engineers to define technical requirements, principles and models that guide solution decisions for IT systems. They are responsible for analyzing and translating business and technical requirements into an architectural blueprint that outlines solutions which integrate across applications, systems and platforms to achieve business objectives. Solution Architects look across business, data, applications and technology to develop logical architectures and transition roadmaps.

Key Activities

• Functions with a high degree of autonomy; generally requires little or no guidance.
• Involved in high complexity solutions
• Solution Options: Evaluates and advises on options, risks, costs versus benefits, system impacts, and technology priorities in moderately complex situations.
• Solution Recommendation: Provides solution recommendations
• Solution Standards: Develops solution standards
• Architecture: Defines the logical and transition architectures
• Architecture Review Board: Brings forward solution recommendations for review and validation.
• POCs: Leads POCs to validate Solution Options
• Training: Assists with the training and development of architects.
• Communication: Communicates and champions the architecture process, its outcome and ongoing results
• Research: Conducts technology research for innovation, continuous improvement and knowledge share for their given area

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 1-3yrs Arch experience
• 12+yrs IT industry experience
• Experience with multiple IT disciplines
• Strong modeling, analytical and communication capabilities
• Certification in one or more architectural methodologies
• Demonstrates an understanding of the business

“Grainger is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or protected veteran status.”