Senior Manager, Lead Architect (Commerce Experience Preferred)

JOB SUMMARY:

The Sr. Manager, Lead Architect - Commerce is a technology leadership role responsible for providing architectural vision, technical leadership, and team leadership across Universal Destinations & Experiences’ global commerce platforms and global architecture teams. This individual leads a team of architects responsible for the design, modernization, and governance of solutions supporting digital commerce, payments, ticketing, reservations, loyalty, and related revenue-generating capabilities that enable exceptional guest and team member experiences.

This role is accountable for ensuring solution architectures align with enterprise standards, business objectives, and technology roadmaps while driving scalability, security, resiliency, and operational excellence. The position partners closely with business, product, engineering, operations, and technology leaders to deliver strategic initiatives, guide platform investments, and advance the evolution of Universal’s commerce ecosystem through modern architecture practices and industry-leading solutions.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Commerce Architecture Strategy - Lead the architecture strategy, roadmap development, and solution design for Universal Destinations & Experiences’ global commerce platforms. Provide architectural leadership across digital commerce (b2c and b2b). Ensure technology investments align with business objectives, enterprise architecture standards, and long-term platform modernization strategies. Serve as a trusted advisor to business and technology leaders on architecture decisions, technology direction, and emerging industry trends.
• Architecture Delivery & Governance - Oversee the development and governance of solution architecture deliverables supporting commerce initiatives. Ensure architecture designs are scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with enterprise standards, design patterns, and technology roadmaps. Provide technical oversight for complex integrations across commerce, finance, guest experience, and operational systems. Establish and maintain architecture metrics, standards, and review processes to drive consistency and quality across solutions.
• Technical Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration - Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Data, Finance, and Operations teams to deliver integrated technology solutions. Facilitate alignment between architecture teams and key stakeholders to ensure solutions support both business and technical objectives. Lead architecture discussions, technology evaluations, and strategic planning efforts across multiple initiatives and value streams. Act as a subject matter expert for commerce and transaction-processing ecosystems.
• Team Leadership & Talent Development - Lead, mentor, and develop a team of solution and application architects responsible for supporting commerce capabilities. Provide guidance on architecture best practices, decision-making, prioritization, and professional development. Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement while ensuring effective communication across teams. Drive team performance through coaching, succession planning, and measurable delivery outcomes.
• Understands and actively participates in Environmental, Health & Safety responsibilities by following established UO policy, procedures, training and team member involvement activities.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Broad technical knowledge with demonstrated success designing and implementing complex enterprise solutions in large-scale organizations.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and communicate technology strategy and architecture direction.
• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture, solution architecture, and software delivery methodologies.
• Ability to influence technical and business stakeholders across multiple organizational levels.
• Deep understanding of digital commerce, payments, order management, loyalty, ticketing, and reservations platforms.
• Knowledge of commerce platforms such as SAP Commerce Cloud and related commerce ecosystems required.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise integration patterns including REST APIs, event-driven architectures, messaging platforms, and distributed systems.
• Experience designing highly available, scalable, secure, and resilient customer-facing transaction platforms.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures, SaaS platforms, microservices, and modern application design patterns.
• Knowledge of relational and NoSQL database technologies and data integration principles.
• Ability to develop architecture roadmaps, technology standards, and governance processes that align with business objectives.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to assess complex business and technical challenges.
• Excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills, including the ability to communicate effectively with executive leadership and technical teams.
• Ability to lead, mentor, and develop architects while fostering a collaborative and high-performing team culture.
• Ability to build strong relationships and work effectively across Product, Engineering, Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Finance, Operations, and business organizations.
• Knowledge of payment processing, PCI compliance, and transaction management concepts preferred.

EDUCATION:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Business Information Systems, or a related technical discipline preferred.

EXPERIENCE:

• 9+ years of experience in technology delivery, software engineering, solution architecture, or platform architecture roles.
• 9+ years of experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale commerce, customer experience, or transaction-processing solutions.
• 5+ years of leadership experience managing architects, engineers, or other technical professionals.
• Demonstrated experience developing architecture strategies, technology roadmaps, and solution designs for complex, highly integrated enterprise environments.
• Experience designing and implementing solutions supporting digital commerce, payments, order management, ticketing, reservations, loyalty, customer identity, or related business capabilities.
• Experience leading architecture efforts across cloud-native, SaaS, and hybrid technology environments.
• Experience with enterprise integration patterns including APIs, event-driven architectures, messaging platforms, and distributed systems.
• Experience presenting technical strategies, architecture recommendations, and investment decisions to executive leadership and business stakeholders.
• Experience establishing architecture governance processes, standards, and best practices across multiple teams and initiatives.
• Experience supporting large-scale, customer-facing platforms requiring high availability, scalability, security, and operational resilience.
• Experience with SAP Commerce Cloud, or comparable enterprise commerce platforms required.
• Experience in hospitality, travel, entertainment, retail, theme park, destination, or other high-volume guest-facing industries preferred.
• Experience supporting omni-channel commerce ecosystems integrating digital commerce, payments, loyalty, and customer engagement platforms preferred.

Your talent, skills and experience will be rewarded with a competitive compensation package.

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