Digital Architect

Summary:  Digital Architect has ownership and accountability to define and maintain the architecture for the development and optimization of customer facing digital and backend technology solutions. The purpose of this role is to create best in class digital solutions that will empower our guests to engage through our digital channels. The Architect will own the digital architecture blueprint for Great Wolf and continue to evolve it to meet the growing needs of the business. This role is located in Chicago, Illinois.

The position will work closely with Digital product and engineering teams to understand to digital roadmap and help shape the application architecture and technical roadmap to help deliver on the strategic objectives. This role will also require hands-on development of key system components and proof of concept of complex system funcationality. The architect will be responsible for optimizing and tuning the application performance and identify ongoing areas for non-functional improvements.

Responsibilities:

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• Be a software engineering leader in the design, development, unit testing, and support of web and mobile customer technologies.
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• Work on digital transformation initiatives to revamp the underlying architecture and technology stack.
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• Build microservices based digital solutions to support omni-channel experience for customers.
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• Be passionate about applying technology to deliver a great customer experience.
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• Help develop the roadmap strategy, vision, business benefits, and prioritization of goals for omnichannel experience, focusing on strategic growth initiatives
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• Maintain deep understanding of initiatives to develop requirements for features and work alongside product & development teams to determine technical feasibility
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• Keep up to date with evolving ecommerce and technology trends, and explore new and effective products or enhancements that will improve site & mobile experiences to lift user traffic, engagement, and conversion
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• Collaborate effectively with executive and department stakeholders within the division to understand the needs of the business as it relates to digital and omni-channel
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• Develop deep product understanding to determine useful ways for guests to use smart technology to enhance their experience pre stay and onsite
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• Collaborate with the engineering and design teams to manage timelines and frequent product iterations
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• Uncover and understand customer needs and build the proof of concepts for new ideas and technologies
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• Define the security best practices and blueprint that is used by the development team
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• Define and evangelize efficient coding and design techniques and perform reviews to ensure compliance
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• Understand, research and follow technical trends in the industry and in general. Assess emerging products and companies to measure their potential value or threat to the company and its products, as well as make recommendations on which new technologies to invest in or leverage
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• Use database and monitoring tools to analyze performance indicators and evaluate experiments
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• Coach and mentor the development team to adopt the technology best practices
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• Evaluate competitors and the market for capability-oriented and emerging development and technology trends
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• Serve as primary technical expert for digital technical product managers and business stakeholders
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Required Qualifications:

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• Expertise in C#/ASP.NET Core Framework with over 10 years of relevant experience.
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• Past experience as a Digital/Applications Architect or Tech Lead for Digital/E-Commerce platforms
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• Experience with container runtimes such as Docker, Rkt, runC, containers.
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• Experience with workload/container orchestration using Kubernetes or similar platforms.
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• Experience with the Azure and Azure DevOps environment.
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• Experience with SQL and NoSQL database systems.
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• Experience with HTML, CSS, JavaScript frameworks like Angular, React or similar.
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• Experience with team development using TFS, Git or similar Source Control technologies.
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• Expertise in microservice patterns, data structures, algorithms and object-oriented design best practices.
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• Strong analytical and creative problem-solving skills.
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• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
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• Must be self-motivated, detail oriented and able to prioritize effectively
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Preferred Qualifications:

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• Experience optimizing website performance for an e-commerce platform
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• Must be self-motivated, detail oriented and able to prioritize effectively.
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• Enthusiasm and curiosity for new technology, be forward thinking and continuously researching disruptors and disruptive technologies to execute on innovative trends
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• Bias for collaborative action (team player who can drive action). Entrepreneurial mindset of finding a way even with roadblocks.
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• Must be able to effectively interact and communicate with executive management
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• Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills
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• Hand on coding & development experience for building complex high transaction system
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Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)