Sr. Solution Architect, Merchandise Technology

Overview

This role is HYBRID in our Irving, TX office

At this time, Foot Locker will not sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization, or offer any immigration related support for this position (i.e. H1B, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, F-1 CPT, J-1, TN, or another type of work authorization.

We are seeking a strategic, innovative, and technically proficient Senior Solutions Architect to drive the architecture, modernization, and evolution of our global Merchandising Technology footprint. In this highly influential role, you will shape platform strategy, lead modernization from legacy mainframe systems to modern cloud and ERP solutions, and guide architecture across Product Master Data (PIM/MDM), Core Merchandising, and Price & Promotion capabilities.

This role provides architectural leadership across both the Product Master Data engineering team and the Mainframe/Merch Core engineering team, ensuring consistent patterns, data alignment, and integrated, domain‑aligned solutions across foundational Merch areas including Product, Inventory, Costing, Purchasing, and Pricing & Promotion.

• Partner with Enterprise Architecture and domain SMEs to define multi‑year modernization roadmaps for Mainframe Merch Core and related platforms.
• Lead modernization initiatives including re‑platforming, application rationalization, and integration redesign.
• Evaluate emerging technologies across Planning, Execution, Price/Promo/Markdown, PIM/PLM, Assortment, and Space Planning to guide long‑term solution strategy.

• Architect capabilities supporting Core Merch workflows including item enrichment, hierarchy and vendor data, costing, purchasing, inventory management, and stock ledger alignment.
• Stay abreast of industry advancements in SaaS and ERP platforms, including buy‑vs‑build trends.
• Lead architecture for PIM and product content platforms, including enrichment, taxonomy, attribution, and syndication.

• Develop cloud‑native, API‑driven, and event‑driven architectures that support scale, high availability, and security.
• Establish reference architectures, design patterns, development standards, and non‑functional requirements used across Merch and Product engineering teams.

• Ensure stability, operability, and incremental improvement of Mainframe Merch Core systems.
• Provide architectural guidance for item, purchasing, inventory, and pricing components throughout coexistence and modernization programs.

• Architect integrations using industry‑standard technologies such as REST APIs, Kafka, Boomi, Apigee, Databricks, and Snowflake.
• Ensure data consistency and integrity across Merchandising, Product, Finance, Supply Chain, eCommerce, and Data & Analytics systems.
• Modernize Mainframe data movement from Go Anywhere/SFTP toward event‑driven, API‑led, and streaming patterns aligned with Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) objectives.

• Serve as the architectural authority for Merchandising platform decisions.
• Partner with Engineering, Product, and Operations teams to define SLAs, operational standards, and deployment best practices.
• Mentor engineers in modern design principles, platform thinking, and domain‑aligned architecture.

• Identify architecture and system vulnerabilities and ensure appropriate controls and mitigations.
• Produce architectural documentation including proposals, diagrams, standards, and technical assessments.

• Minimum 8 years of architecture experience in Merchandising
  , Supply Chain
  , PIM/MDM
  , or Retail Product Data domains.
• Experience architecting distributed enterprise systems across on‑prem, cloud, and hybrid environments.
• Broad experience across Core Merch functions including Item, Inventory, Purchasing, Costing, and Price & Promotion.
• Experience leading modernization of mainframe or legacy retail systems into cloud, microservices, or ERP platforms.
• Strong grounding in API design
  , integration patterns
  , and event‑driven architectures.
• Experience with…