Solutions Architect, Supply Chain

Serving customers and our community starts with the best people doing their best work. That is precisely what we have created at MSC Industrial Supply Co. We are a leading North American distributor of metalworking and maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products and services, offering more than 2 million products with over 80 years of experience across dozens of industries.

About the role

The Solutions Architect, Supply Chain demonstrates expertise by analyzing business problems, articulating technology capabilities, and weaving the best options into cohesive solutions that integrate into MSC's broader technology architecture. This role utilizes existing software frameworks, custom and best-of-breed systems, and hybrid cloud infrastructure to create solutions that add business value and competitive advantage. Leadership is expected through teaching, coaching, collaborating, and proposing innovative approaches. The Solutions Architect drives improvements, establishes project milestones, assists with planning, and shapes project outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end IT solution design for supply chain initiatives, decomposing business problems into scalable system designs and guiding solutions from concept to go-live.
• Define and maintain the system architecture vision, roadmap, reference architecture, standards, governance, and reusable design patterns; facilitate architecture/design reviews and build-vs-buy decisions.
• Architect system solutions across multiple platforms: WMS, WCS/WES, TMS, planning, inventory, fulfillment, and custom IBM iSeries/AS400 applications.
• Own integration patterns across IBM iSeries, WMS, WCS/WES, ERP, TMS, SAP/S/4HANA/BTP, Google Cloud, IBM Sterling Integrator, EDI, APIs, middleware, event messaging, file exchange, and partner connectivity.
• Provide architectural leadership for warehouse automation and robotics, including ASRS, AMR, PLC, Fortna, AutoStore, Exacta, Savoye, iPack, Cubiscan, Plus One, Osaro, and related material handling solutions.
• Ensure reliable data flow across systems; maintain integration frameworks, documentation, data dictionaries, and traceability standards.
• Drive reliability, quality, and operational readiness, including environment strategy, testing assets, observability, SRE practices, security controls, DR/runbooks, release calendars, incident/problem management, and root-cause remediation.
• Partner with Industrial Engineering, Operations, Maintenance, IT Operations, IT Security, Data, Finance, and vendors; communicate effectively with warehouse teams, technical teams, and executives.
• Identify opportunities for automation, analytics, AI/ML, workflow improvement, and technical debt reduction while ensuring compliance, security, and change management controls.
• Mentor analysts, developers, and architects; share current technology trends.
• Foster the MSC culture within the department and company to ensure unity of purpose.
• Participate in special projects and perform additional duties as required.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent experience; master’s preferred.
• 10+ years of IT experience with significant solution design experience, lead designer, or engineering leadership experience, preferably at an enterprise scale.
• Programming/web/data technologies such as RPGILE, COBOL, DB2, SQL, QRY, C#, C++, Python, Java, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, relational/NoSQL query languages.
• Experience building real-time data streaming solutions between cloud and enterprise systems using reliable, resilient, and scalable message queuing architectures.
• Strong experience supporting supply chain, distribution, warehouse, logistics, transportation, fulfillment, or manufacturing technologies.
• Proven delivery of major enterprise systems across multiple sites, including vendor, platform, or budget/cost management.
• Experience modernizing legacy environments.
• Capability in modeling, target/transition roadmaps, application rationalization, and system documentation/diagrams.
• Familiarity with IBM iSeries/AS400, RDI, VSCode, Turnover, Implementer, Jenkins, GitHub, batch processing, legacy integration, and modernization patterns.
• Experience with Jira/Atlassian, Bitbucket, ServiceNow, and Office365 products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio) or equivalent.
• Knowledge of WMS, WCS/WES, TMS, planning, inventory, fulfillment, SAP S/4HANA/BTP, Ariba patterns, queues, and canonical data models.
• Experience with Google Cloud, hybrid cloud architecture, cloud integration, API gateways, observability/APM/logs/metrics/tracing, security, CI/CD, testing, and DR.
• Multi-tier architectures, load balancing, distributed systems, loose coupling/stateless design, or performance optimization.
• Application security, PKI/encryption, certificates/keys, remote access, credential management, vulnerability remediation, and separation-of-duty/change controls.
• SDLC, Agile/Waterfall/feature-driven methods, environment topology, sandbox/client management, data masking/seeding, repos, branching, promotion, and rollback policies.

Preferred Qualifications

• TOGAF, ArchiMate, Google Professional Cloud Architect/Data Engineer, ITIL, SAFe Architect, or other IT certifications.
• Ability to understand business needs, communicate effectively with stakeholders, and tailor messages appropriately.
• Self-starter with distribution business knowledge, acting like an owner, working through ambiguity, and applying sound judgment.
• Innovative and strategic thinker with high standards, energy, focus, and a track record of exceeding goals.
• Collaborative leadership, building trust with a "no problem too small or too large" mindset.
• Ability to handle multiple workstreams, adapt to feedback, and maintain high standards through setbacks.

Other Requirements

• A valid driver’s license may be required.
• Up to 25% travel may be required.
• This position may require access to International Traffic in Arms Regulations Information (“ITAR”) and/or Controlled Unclassified Information (“CUI”).
• Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States; sponsorship is not available for this position.

Pay

Compensation starting at $109,500 - $172,040 depending on candidate location and experience. The salary range is based on comparable roles in the industry and labor costs in respective cities. Actual compensation is determined by relevant experience, education, and peer pay equity.

Benefits

• Comprehensive healthcare plans.
• Generous 401K and stock purchasing programs.
• Tuition reimbursement opportunities.
• Paid time away for holidays, vacations, and illness.
• Associate Inclusion Circles: Women, Pride, Black, Generational, Veterans, HOLA, and Able.