Sr Solutions Architect-People Systems - Discount Tire

Here at Discount Tire, we celebrate the spirit of our people with extraordinary pride and enthusiasm. Our business has been growing for more than 60 years and now is the best time in our history to join our team. We are opening more locations every year and we are always looking for qualified individuals to promote our growth. We are a company that promotes from within, both in our retail and corporate operations. Our People Systems span from HCM, Benefits, and Payroll, to Learning Management, to our Intranet and more giving a diverse array of delivery opportunities to leverage your skills and grow your career at Discount Tire. Under minimal supervision, the Sr Solution Architect designs, develops, and delivers technical solutions that balance architectural concerns of projects with the right balance of long-term strategies and short-term tactical needs.  This individual will also convert stakeholder requirements into technical solutions and roadmaps, while communicating the financial, organizational, and technical implications of the recommended solution.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

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• Collaborate with business partners to understand software needs and define detailed business and technical requirements; translate requirements into technical solutions with developers; provide recommendations and contingency plans.
• Develop applications and integrations architecture in alignment with business strategies and priorities while evaluating the financial, organizational, process and technology tradeoffs of alternative architectures.
• Analyze current enterprise technical environment; identify gaps; recommend and implement solutions for improvement.
• Develop and diagram detailed roadmaps which capture transitional architectures; ensures architecture can move from a current state to a target state.
• Stay current on the latest industry and emerging technologies, reference architectures, patterns, trends and strategies.
• Define and govern solution architectures working collaboratively with Enterprise Architecture to ensure project requirements align with the enterprise’s long-term strategies and maintaining a current and accurate enterprise-wide view of key services, capabilities, and processes.
• Facilitate meetings and conference calls with internal stakeholders and 3^rd party consultants.
• Document business requirements and capabilities into Business requirements and Technical Design Documents.
• Lead planning workshops/ design sessions to envision and assess business needs, features and desired capabilities.
• Work with other internal and external IT staff (HRIS, Identity Team, Network Engineering, Integrations Engineering, etc.) to get work done collaboratively with others.
• Capture, document and design business, application and data flows.
• Collaborate with Quality Assurance (QA), developers/ engineers and architects to align solutions, identify dependencies, and ensure functional results.
• Conduct feasibility and impact analysis; identify cross-project, application or business unit dependencies; provide solutions to mitigate risk; develop contingency plans for potential impacts.
• Mentor other IT analysts and level I and II architects.
• Assist business stakeholders and vendors by answering questions related to IT processes, procedures and services.
• Record, maintain and manage customer software change requests within the Company's tracking system.
• Complete work in a timely and accurate manner while providing appropriate customer service; driving work to stage gate deliverables (review and give feedback on deliverables, oversee/mentor adherence to template usage, etc.)
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• This position requires a minimum of eight (8) years of progressive IT analyst and solutions architecture experience employing an advanced understanding of the software development life cycle, service-oriented architecture (SOA) in a cloud-based environment, technical architecture, Application Programming Interface (API) design,  network design, application development, middleware, servers and storage, database management and operations, requirement modeling, process mapping techniques, operating systems, databases, non-relational file structures, system design, analysis, development methodologies, and quality assurance testing methodologies.
• This position also requires a minimum of five (5) years of experience with business process design and improvement.
• Proven understanding of design patterns, reference architectures, industry standards, broad technical knowledge, and architectural principles.
• Ability to estimate financial impact of technical architecture alternatives and apply multiple technical solutions to business problems.
• Proven understanding of capabilities and components of common enterprise application, database, security, network, integration, and business process architectures.
• Proven understanding of Service-Oriented and Cloud-based architectural principles and patterns is required.
• Proven understanding of architecture practices, including but not limited to, models, reference architectures, patterns, standards, and frameworks.
• Ability to write SQL queries and to understand and adjust complex queries.
• Experience preparing and executing delivery on business and technical requirements, specifications, user manuals, test plans, test scripts and test cases.
• This position requires excellent communication to all levels of the organization presenting complex ideas concisely and clearly; ability to articulate ideas verbally and in writing including the ability to articulate technical ideas to a non-technical audience.
• Organizational, customer service, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work independently and in a team is vital.
• Proven ability to work efficiently and accurately under pressure, meet deadlines and present a professional demeanor is essential.
• Proven ability to respond to different organizational situations while maintaining a positive and friendly attitude is necessary.
• Maintaining confidentiality, treating others with respect and upholding Company values are key attributes.
• In addition, organizational and problem-solving skills, a can-do attitude, and the ability to adjust to changing requirements are essential.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, including skills with Word, Excel, SharePoint, PowerPoint, and Visio is required.

Preferred qualifications:

• Working knowledge and experience with HR and People Systems such as Workday, Kronos, SuccessFactors, etc.
• Past experience with a programming language.
• Experience working with development teams to design solutions with job scheduling automation software Skybot (Automate Schedule), Tidal, Redwood, etc.
• Lean Six Sigma Green or Black Belt certification achieved

Educational Requirements:

• This position requires a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, Data Science, Statistics, or Mathematics.

Discount Tire provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

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