Solutions Architect Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, Minnesota

Salary Range: $100,000 To $120,000 Annually

The Opportunity

As part of our talented and driven technology team, the Solutions Architect plays an important role in delivering business outcomes through well-designed, scalable, and secure technology solutions. The Solutions Architect partners closely with product owners, engineering teams, and business stakeholders to translate business needs into technical designs that align with enterprise standards and strategic direction. This role is hands-on, delivery-focused, and helps in ensuring solutions are practical, maintainable, and aligned with our long-term technology vision.

The Solutions Architect bridges the gap between business goals and technical execution- supporting solution design activities, collaborating with implementation teams, and ensuring quality outcomes that support Great Clips' mission, vision, and growth.
Your Mission

On your journey, you will face challenges such as:

• Designing and maintaining architecture solutions that meet business requirements while aligning with architecture best practices and security policies. Producing solution architecture artifacts such as diagrams, interface specifications, and technical specifications.
• Partnering closely with product, engineering, and delivery teams throughout the full solution lifecycle-from concept and design through development, testing, deployment, and support. Providing architectural guidance and helping resolve design issues as they arise.
• Translating business needs into technical solutions , working directly with engineering and stakeholders to understand objectives. Supporting evaluation of options and trade-offs in collaboration with senior architects and delivery leaders.
• Ensuring solution designs address functional, integration, and security considerations. Reviewing designs and implementations to ensure they meet requirements and architectural expectations.
• Collaborating with Data Architecture and other architectural disciplines to ensure solutions align with standards and technology direction. Raising potential exceptions or gaps for review with senior leaders.
• Supporting one or more concurrent initiatives , within a defined solution area.
• Staying current on relevant technologies and patterns , contributing ideas and recommendations that improve solution effectiveness, scalability, and maintainability.

Your Expertise

To land this job, you will need:

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Engineering is preferred, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering or technical roles, with demonstrated experience contributing to solution design.
• Strong understanding of systems development, including software development lifecycle, requirements analysis, solution design, testing, deployment, and security.
• C# (or similar) and SQL coding experience.
• Experience designing solutions using relational database management systems and data integration patterns.
• Knowledge of service-oriented and API-based architectures, including web services, REST APIs, and integration technologies.
• Experience with Microsoft technologies such as Azure, Windows Servers, and SQL Server.
• Ability to evaluate trade-offs and make pragmatic architectural decisions in complex environments.
• Familiarity with both cloud-based and on-prem systems.
• Well-developed oral and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with business partners, engineering teams, and third-party vendors.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to collaborate effectively and communicate technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• Passion for learning and applying emerging technologies where they add real business value.

Your Work Environment

This is a hybrid work position requiring a combination of three in-office workdays and the option to work from home on the remaining days. Working remotely will require reliable, secure internet.
Living the Values

We Are Kind

• Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Be humble, act honorably, and express gratitude. Respect and value everyone's role in our company's success.

We Exceed Expectations

• Innovate; be curious about what's possible. Be adaptable and eager to respond to challenges. Collaborate and work together to achieve our goals. Strive for greatness and inspire others by your example. Be proactive. Seek continuous improvement.

We Focus on Execution

• Make decisions with the belief it can be executed in 6,000 salons. Focus on impact of key brand measures. Prioritize on ability to execute quickly.

We Keep it Simple

• Set clear expectations. Make things easy to understand and execute. Stay focused on what's most important.

We Listen and Earn Trust

• Be respectfully honest; react thoughtfully. Respond quickly - 24 hours or less, and remember that personal contact is always best. Be transparent through open communication and candid conversation. Be willing to admit mistakes and fix them. Listen generously: Seek to understand other's perspectives. Act with integrity. Always. Even when no one will know.

We Make it Fun

• Smile! Find opportunities to laugh. Celebrate accomplishments and recognize the contributions of others. Approach people and situations with a positive attitude. Build a sense of community where everyone enjoys coming to work every day.

What We Offer

We offer a competitive salary, health benefits, wellness programs, a company-matching 401K and tuition assistance but some perks that set us apart are:

A focus on your development . We want to know what your dreams and aspirations are and hope to find ways of Great Clips helping you along in your journey. Your personalized development plan will create a path for your growth and promotion potential.

A GREAT culture . One the most frequent compliments you will hear about Great Clips from employees, franchisees and business partners alike is that Great Clips has a GREAT culture. Our belief is that we are strongest together and therefore find it important to have an inclusive, diverse work culture. Though we embrace our differences, we all share in our 6 core values; we are kind, we listen and earn trust, we keep it simple, we focus on execution, we exceed expectations, and WE MAKE IT FUN.

A spirit of ideas and innovation . Here at Great Clips, we have a competitive lead within our industry. Though we hold a strong position, we never stop pushing ourselves forward and continue to look for new ways of delivering a powerful and enduring brand.
About Great Clips

With more than 4,400 franchised salons throughout the United States and Canada, Great Clips is the world's largest haircutting salon brand. Our salon owners and corporate staff are dedicated to our salon communities with a focus on philanthropic and volunteer activities. Great Clips, Inc. employees are passionate about what we do and our technology team geeks out in finding ways to use technology to make what we do even better.

Great Clips Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer that values the strength diversity brings to the workplace. Great Clips Inc. participates in the US E-Verify program. With all new hires, we provide the Social Security Administration and, if applicable, the US Department of Homeland Security with information from each new employee's Form I-9 to confirm work authorization. This role is not eligible for immigration sponsorship.

Job Ref #: 1575