Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco ranks seventh in Forbes “World’s Best Employers”.

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others. 

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

Enterprise Architects work with stakeholders, leadership, and subject matter experts to build a holistic view of the organization's value streams, goals, strategies, capabilities, processes, information, and information technology assets. The role of the enterprise architect is to ensure that the business and IT are in alignment. The enterprise architect links the business mission, strategy, capabilities and processes of an organization to its IT strategy, documents this using multiple architectural models or views that show how the current and future needs of an organization will be met in an efficient, sustainable, agile, and adaptable manner, and fosters the changes needed to achieve.

Costco’s Planning and Strategy team is seeking an Architect to help mature the current practice and guide the business system transformation efforts for the enterprise. This individual will be a member of the Business Architecture team that is responsible for leading efforts to align business capabilities and product value delivery to our enterprise strategies, technology roadmap, and business system transformation. The team's purpose, as a part of the Enterprise Architecture team, is to accelerate delivery of member and employee-centric solutions, drive consistent technology use, support transformation strategy, and provide adaptable architecture through continuous technology improvement.

The position will provide direct input into the governance cycle that supports the achievement of key goals, and the planning and execution of various business scenarios to deliver bottom line business value.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

● Establishes and maintains models of the organization's value streams, goals, strategies, capabilities, processes, information, and information technology assets.

● Ensures that target state and reference architectures, architecture principles, guardrails and standards align with industry standards and solutions.

● Establishes reusable patterns and reference architecture implementations to enable adherence to best practices.

● Supports Vertical/Horizontal leadership and business stakeholders in the establishment of strategic domain goals and initiatives.

● Applies architectural principles to clearly articulate its business capabilities, governance structure, and supporting processes using a holistic approach.

● Develops an understanding of current capabilities, technology strategy, and the alignment to business goals while considering operational constraints of the IT organization.

● Aligns the strategic objective and tactical demands of impacted business groups by defining and analyzing what the group does, how it does it, how it is organized, identifying common business capabilities across other business domains, and how it realizes value.

● Ensures that business and technology are in alignment by linking Costco’s business strategy, and processes with IT strategy.

● Depicts the primary business functions of the enterprise and distinguishes between customer-facing, supplier-related, business execution and business management functions.

● Identifies business capabilities and distinguishes the value streams.

● Defines the set of strategic, core and support processes that transcend functional and organizational boundaries; identify and describe external entities such as customers, suppliers, and external systems that interact with the business; and describe which people, resources and controls are involved in the processes.

● Serves as Subject Matter Expert in business processes for assigned program area(s), as well as maintain a clear understanding of business architecture concerns across the enterprise.

● Leads and manages business architecture diagram reviews.

● Defines, develops, and maintains integrated views of the enterprise using a repeatable approach, identifying and leveraging an appropriate framework, and available standard techniques.

● Advises IT Leadership in defining the data shared across the enterprise and the relationships between those data.

● Leads in the collaboration with business and IT teams to propose, architect, and plan technology solutions and provide advice into technical solution designs.

● Investigates emerging technologies and evaluates their potential impact to Costco by conducting research, and identifying solutions, and making recommendations supported by a properly developed business case that includes technical feasibility, costs, benefits, etc.

● Develops processes and documentation according to the needs of the organization.

● Collaborates and influences others, to include peers, leaders, and vendors.

● Mentors and builds the technical skills of others, and foster a strong and collaborative team environment.

● Participates in team planning and activities for improving skills, knowledge, and quality of work.

● Continues personal growth in the areas of technology, business knowledge, and company policies.

● Leads and participates in process improvement initiatives and in setting best practice standards around Business Architecture, Governance, and Quality Control.

● Advises in the development, implementation, and maintenance of appropriate governance processes on business architecture team's involvement in IT development life cycle.

● Proactively investigate opportunities to increase the value to the business.

● Participates in Portfolio Management using established standard Business Architecture artifacts including integrated Value Stream and End to End process models.

● Establishes enterprise-wide Business Architecture models that inform Top level organizational decisions and Strategic Initiative planning and execution.

REQUIRED

● 5 years of demonstrated experience with analyzing and documenting business value streams, capabilities, processes, and data using model-based representations for the purpose of collecting, aggregating, or analyzing complex business information.

● 2 years of business leadership experience. Ability to handle a large variety of details and to work with all levels of organization.

● Demonstrates a strong understanding of emerging technologies to support the development of new solutions.

● Demonstrates a logical and structured approach to time management and task prioritization.

● Demonstrates excellent communication skills.

● Demonstrates strong attention to detail.

● Proven skills in leadership, relationship building, negotiation, collaboration, advocacy, governance, and consensus building.

● Excellent verbal and written communication skills (facilitation, negotiation, conflict resolution) at all levels.

● Ability to translate technical ideas/designs to multiple audiences, including Executives.

● Proficient with diagramming tools (MS Visio, Lucid Chart, or equivalent)

● Team player with proven ability to work effectively within a large organization that operates using a matrix organization.

● Ability to communicate trade-offs and transactional states with technical and business teams.

● Ability to make architecture changes in a dynamic agile environment.

● Available to work nights and weekends and perform 24x7 on-call support as scheduled.

Recommended

● Bachelor degree or equivalent experience in business architecture, information systems or related fields. Advanced degree a plus.

● 5 years’ experience as an Architect.

● 10 years of Technology and Retail / Supply Chain experience.

● Experience with Public Cloud services (AWS, Microsoft Azure, GCP).

● Experience working in ERP and Retail systems software (IBM i and/or SAP), including knowledge of Product Lifecycle Management.

● Experience/knowledge of Enterprise Architecture modeling, repository, and publishing tools.

● Knowledge of software development lifecycle methodologies with experience in both Classic and Agile (scaled) methodologies

● Experience with distributed Enterprise Architecture.

● TOGAF certification.

● Working knowledge of DevOps, agile methodology, and continuous improvement.

● Experience and understanding of Costco’s business model and legacy systems.

● Ability to listen to and understand business needs.

● Analytical thinker possessing strong problem solving and decision making skills.

● Proven experience with creating documentation for communication with varied audiences.

● Deep understanding of business requirements elicitation pursuant to specific programs/projects involved.

Required Documents

● Cover Letter

● Resume

California applicants, please click  here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Pay Ranges: 

Level 2 - $143,000 - $175,000, Bonus and Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) eligible 

Level 3 - $171,000 - $205,000, Bonus and Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) eligible 

Level 4 - $201,000 - $240,000, Bonus and Restricted Stock Unit (RSU) eligible

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursement account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to IT-Recruiting@costco.com

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.