Principal Integration Architect (Azure / Retail Platforms)

OUTGROWN YOUR OWN BACKYARD? COME PLAY IN OURS.

At Columbia, we’re as passionate about the outdoors as you are. And while our gear is available worldwide, we’re proud to be based in the Pacific Northwest, where natural wonders are our playground.

Every product we make and every task we undertake is inspired by the famous words of our founder Gert Boyle: “It’s perfect. Now make it better.” As pioneers of relentless improvement, we are constantly evolving.

We believe the outdoors is ours to protect and strive to keep our planet healthy. We believe in empowering people to experience the outdoors to the fullest.

And we believe in you.

POSITION SUMMARY

We are seeking a Principal Integration Architect to define and evolve how our retail systems integrate at scale. This role is responsible for designing reusable integration software patterns across a complex retail ecosystem—not for delivering individual point‑to‑point integrations.

This is a senior, hands‑on architecture role for someone who has lived inside retail technology environments and understands how real retail systems behave under operational pressure. You will act as the architectural authority for integration design, enabling multiple engineering teams to build consistently, predictably, and sustainably over time.

This role is not focused on data engineering, analytics platforms, or middleware configuration. The emphasis is integration architecture as a software discipline, grounded in retail domain realities.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

• Define and govern enterprise integration software patterns used across retail platforms and domains
• Design integration approaches spanning:
  • API‑first and contract‑driven integrations
  • Event‑driven and asynchronous workflows
  • Hybrid interaction models across distributed retail systems
• Own key architectural decisions such as:
  • Synchronous vs. asynchronous tradeoffs
  • Orchestration vs. choreography
  • Canonical models vs. domain‑aligned contracts
  • Versioning and backward‑compatibility strategies
• Shape integration designs to accommodate retail‑specific constraints, including:
  • Peak traffic and promotional events
  • Partial fulfillment and order state transitions
  • Inventory accuracy, reconciliation, and latency tolerance
  • Returns, cancellations, and exception handling
• Create and maintain reference architectures, exemplars, and standards that guide engineering teams
• Review and influence integration designs across teams, ensuring alignment to defined patterns
• Partner closely with engineering, platform, product, and security teams to ensure architectural consistency
• Mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction without being delivery‑ or ticket‑driven

YOU ARE

• A senior or principal‑level integration architect who has spent meaningful time inside retail technology ecosystems
• Someone who designs how systems should integrate, not just how individual integrations get built
• Experienced in creating reusable integration patterns adopted by multiple teams over time
• Comfortable making architectural tradeoff decisions informed by real retail operating conditions
• Fluent in translating retail business flows into durable integration designs
• Seen as a technical authority who can set direction, not just review diagrams
• Hands‑on enough to validate patterns through reference implementations, without owning day‑to‑day delivery
• Willing to push back on one‑off solutions in favor of standardization, consistency, and long‑term maintainability

YOU HAVE

• Direct integration architecture experience within retail organizations, such as:
  • Direct‑to‑consumer (DTC) or omnichannel commerce platforms
  • Order Management Systems (OMS)
  • Warehouse, fulfillment, or 3PL integrations (WMS)
  • Inventory, pricing, promotions, or merchandise planning systems
  • POS, store systems, or store‑to‑digital transaction flows
• Designed and governed integration patterns including:
• API‑first and contract‑driven interfaces
• Event‑driven messaging and asynchronous processing
• Canonical data or event modeling
• Error handling, retries, idempotency, and dead‑letter strategies
• Experience owning integration architecture across multiple teams or domains
• A practical understanding of retail system lifecycles, including order progression, fulfillment exceptions, returns, and inventory reconciliation
• The ability to clearly explain why one integration pattern is preferable to another in a given retail scenario
• Experience producing architectural a