Senior Architect, Planning & Merchandising

Join our PPCF Technology team as a Senior Architect, Planning & Merchandising and serve as the primary technical lead for our enterprise Planning & Merchandising platform. You will own the architectural vision, design governance, and integration strategy across supply chain planning, merchandise financial planning, and data integration — collaborating with engineering teams, business planning and merchandising stakeholders, and implementation partners to deliver robust, scalable, well-governed solutions.

• This position is fully remote

• This role is an Individual Contributor

A day in the life as a Senior Architect, Planning & Merchandising...

• Contributes to the architectural vision, roadmap, standards, and best practices for the Planning & Merchandising domain, ensuring alignment with organizational and enterprise goals

• Serves as the primary technical authority for enterprise planning solutions, guiding implementation decisions, configuration vs. customization trade-offs, and integration approaches

• Provides technical leadership and design guidance to development teams, leading the design of scalable planning system architectures that meet performance, scalability, security, and maintainability requirements

• Designs architectural solutions supporting end-to-end planning processes — demand forecasting, merchandise financial planning, OTB, inventory optimization, replenishment, and allocation — accommodating the full planning hierarchy and pre/in-season workflows

• Partners with Merchandising and Planning business stakeholders to translate planning requirements into scalable technical architectures and drives alignment on legacy system sunset and integration strategies

• Designs and collaborates on integration patterns and data pipelines connecting planning systems to enterprise systems (ERP, OMS, WMS) using REST, event-driven, and ETL/ELT approaches, ensuring data quality, latency, and lineage requirements are met

• Defines data architecture standards for planning master and transaction data; collaborates with data engineering to ensure planning data supports reporting and AI/ML use cases

• Participates in architectural governance forums and collaborates with enterprise and domain architects to ensure solutions align with CBH enterprise standards

• Identifies and mitigates architectural risks and technical debt; creates and maintains comprehensive architectural documentation including solution specifications, data flow diagrams, and integration maps

What you’ll bring to the table...

• Strong understanding of retail planning processes including demand forecasting, merchandise financial planning, OTB, inventory optimization, replenishment, and allocation; familiarity with planning hierarchy structures and pre/in-season planning cycles

• Hands‑on experience with enterprise planning solutions (e.g., Blue Yonder, o9, Anaplan, or comparable); familiarity with SaaS platform configuration frameworks and customization trade‑offs

• Knowledge of how planning systems integrate with merchandising, procurement, inventory management, and supply chain execution systems

• Expertise in enterprise integration architecture using REST/SOAP APIs, event‑driven messaging (Kafka, Azure Service Bus, GCP Pub/Sub), and ETL/ELT pipelines

• Strong understanding of cloud platforms (Azure preferred, GCP) and cloud‑native architecture patterns including microservices and containerization

• Proficiency in data architecture: dimensional modeling, data lake/warehouse design (Big Query, Snowflake, or equivalent), and MDM principles

• Knowledge of architectural governance frameworks (TOGAF, C4) and ability to design and document comprehensive solution architectures

• Ability to work effectively with cross‑functional teams including business, engineering, and external implementation partners

• Ability to influence stakeholders and communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences

We’d love to hear from you if you have...

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)

• 8+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, systems integration, or a related technical discipline

• 3+ years of architecture experience, including design and governance of enterprise‑scale systems

• Experience with enterprise planning solutions (Blue Yonder/JDA, o9, Anaplan, or comparable) and retail planning or supply chain technology strongly preferred

• Experience with enterprise integration platforms, SaaS vendor collaboration, and agile delivery environments