Location: Reading or Dublin – hybrid (2 days a week)
Travel: Occasional travel between sites
Salary & Package: Competitive
A global retail organisation is seeking an experienced Solution Architect – Forecasting, Allocation & Replenishment to join its Technology Architecture function. This is a permanent role within a growing architecture practice, supporting large‑scale transformation across retail, supply chain and planning systems.
This position will play a key role in shaping a modern, ML/AI‑enabled retail ordering platform, guiding solution design, and ensuring architectural integrity across complex, high‑volume enterprise environments.
What You’ll Do
* Design end‑to‑end enterprise solutions across processes, applications, data, integration, technology, service and security
* Create and review solution blueprints and integration/security documentation
* Analyse requirements, identify gaps and shape architectures to meet functional and non‑functional needs
* Define as‑is, to‑be and transition architectures, securing alignment with stakeholders
* Present solution designs to the Design Authority for approval
* Oversee low‑level design activities and collaborate with specialist architects and systems integrators
* Resolve design issues, manage change impacts and ensure architectural decisions are understood
* Ensure solution delivery aligns with programme plans, testing phases and cutover timelines
* Support environment provisioning and maintain solution quality throughout development
* Maintain architecture documentation and update baseline architecture at go‑live
* Work closely with business partners, SMEs, delivery teams and service teams to ensure smooth implementation and transition to support
What You’ll Bring
* Demonstrable experience with inventory planning and forecasting platforms
* Strong communication skills with excellent documentation and diagramming capability
* Proven experience designing solutions in high‑volume retail environments (fashion/general merchandise ideal)
* Experience with forecasting, allocation and replenishment systems
* Familiarity with retail supply chain and planning platforms
* Experience working on large‑scale IT transformation programmes
* Solid understanding of the systems development lifecycle
* Experience with cloud applications and Retail ERP (Oracle Retail preferred)
* Ability to analyse complex, interconnected systems and produce simplified architectural models
Successful Candidates Will Have
* 7+ years in IT engineering/design within large multinational organisations
* 5+ years in solution architecture
* Broad understanding of major IT disciplines and software development practices
* Experience integrating applications in high‑volume environments (Azure Integration Services a plus)
* Strong stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to influence without authority
* A proactive, curious, self‑starter mindset with a passion for continuous improvement
* Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate comfortably with senior leaders, product owners and delivery teams
* Experience working in retail or other fast‑paced consumer environments
* Experience developing solutions aligned to an overarching architecture strategy
* Ability to provide leadership and guidance to peers and junior team members