What are the responsibilities and job description for the Manager, Integrations position at Forward Air Corporation?
Job Description
The Manager, Integrations serves as a technical leader responsible for the design, development, implementation, and ongoing support of enterprise and customer integrations across multiple technology platforms. They drive architectural direction and ensure the delivery of scalable, secure, and high-performing API-driven solutions that enable business growth and customer onboarding. The ideal candidate blends deep hands-on technical expertise with strong leadership capabilities, guiding both internal engineers and external partners. They champion best practices, establish standards, and ensure integration reliability and operational excellence. In close collaboration with IT and business stakeholders, they play a critical role in aligning integration strategy with organizational priorities. This role operates in a fast-paced environment where innovation, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration are essential.
Responsibilities
The Manager, Integrations serves as a technical leader responsible for the design, development, implementation, and ongoing support of enterprise and customer integrations across multiple technology platforms. They drive architectural direction and ensure the delivery of scalable, secure, and high-performing API-driven solutions that enable business growth and customer onboarding. The ideal candidate blends deep hands-on technical expertise with strong leadership capabilities, guiding both internal engineers and external partners. They champion best practices, establish standards, and ensure integration reliability and operational excellence. In close collaboration with IT and business stakeholders, they play a critical role in aligning integration strategy with organizational priorities. This role operates in a fast-paced environment where innovation, problem-solving, and cross-functional collaboration are essential.
Responsibilities
- Provide technical leadership and architectural direction for internal and vendor teams to deliver new customer onboarding solutions within required timelines.
- Own and evolve integration design standards, ensuring performance, reliability, scalability, and security across all customer-facing and internal integrations.
- Lead root-cause analysis and hands-on troubleshooting of complex integration issues across APIs, middleware, and data pipelines.
- Partner with IT and business stakeholders to evaluate, select, and implement optimal integration technologies, platforms, and architectural patterns.
- Design and oversee API-driven, event-based, and batch integration solutions across distributed systems.
- Maintain comprehensive documentation for integration architectures, solutions, and standard operating procedures (SOPs).
- Mentor and develop engineering talent through technical coaching, design reviews, and adherence to coding standards.
- Establish and enforce engineering best practices, including code quality, reusability, and testing standards.
- Monitor integration health using observability tools and implement proactive measures to ensure uptime and performance.
- Manage multiple concurrent integration projects and ensure delivery aligns with business priorities and quality expectations.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams to communicate project status, risks, and dependencies effectively.
- Support vendor relationships and ensure alignment with organizational technical standards and delivery expectations.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives to optimize integration processes, tools, and frameworks.
- All other duties as assigned to meet evolving business needs.
- Education: Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field from an accredited college or university preferred.
- Certification/Licensure: Relevant cloud or integration certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, MuleSoft Certification) preferred.
- Experience: 10 years of hands-on experience designing and building integrations using cloud-based technologies, including REST/SOAP APIs, event-driven architectures, and middleware platforms.
- 5 years of experience leading technical teams and delivering multiple concurrent integration projects, with ownership of design and delivery quality.
- Hands-on experience architecting and operating cloud-based integration solutions on AWS or Azure (e.g., API Gateway, Lambda/Functions, SQS/Service Bus, EventBridge, Java, Spring Boot, MuleSoft).
- Strong understanding of supply chain or logistics business processes is highly preferred.
- Demonstrated expertise in integration patterns (synchronous/asynchronous, pub-sub, batch), data formats (JSON, XML, EDI), and observability tooling.
- Strong situational analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities in complex technical environments.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence stakeholders across all levels and cultures.
- Proven ability to lead, mentor, and direct both internal teams and external vendor partners in a fast-paced environment.
- Demonstrated discretion and confidentiality in handling and protecting sensitive information.
- Technical: Proficient with common office technologies, including Windows PCs, Microsoft O365 (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) and web conferencing (Teams, Zoom, Webex, etc.)
- Environment: Comfort commuting to/from and working in a 100% on-site setting (listed in this posting), with travel for related meetings/events.