Solutions Architect

Department Overview

McDonald’s new growth strategy, Accelerating the Arches, encompasses all aspects of our business as the leading global omni-channel restaurant brand. As the consumer landscape shifts, we are using our competitive advantages to further strengthen our brand. One of our core growth strategies is to Double Down on the 3Ds (Delivery, Digital and Drive Thru). McDonald’s will accelerate technology innovation so 65M+ customers a day will experience a fast, easy experience, whether at one of our 25,000 and growing Drive Thrus, through McDelivery, dine-in or takeaway.

Leading this revolution is McDonald’s Global Technology organization made up of intrapreneurs who get to build really cool tech with scary smart people using the latest innovations like AI, IOT, and edge computing. We do this working along diverse, global teams who are always hungry for a challenge. It’s bonus points when you get to see your family and friends use the tech you build at their favorite McD restaurant.

Job Description

This opportunity is part of the Global Technology Enterprise Products & Platforms (EPP) Team, focused on Treasury and Tax applications, Kyriba and Vertex, where our vision is to “Always be a people led, product centric, forward-thinking & trusted technology partner”.

The Solutions Architect role is responsible for designing and maintaining solutions blueprints for products and working with product engineering teams to implement solution design. This includes designing, configuring, and supporting implementation of innovative solutions that align with business objectives and technology strategy. This role will report to the Manager, Technical Product Management.

Duties

• Solution Design and Architecture
  • Work closely with stakeholders to understand their business objectives, challenges, and requirements.
  • Develop comprehensive architectural designs for technology solutions across multiple products that meet business requirements and integrate seamlessly with existing McDonald’s systems and platforms.
  • Ensure solutions are scalable, secure, and resilient, in line with industry best practices and McDonald’s standards, aiming to strike a balance between innovation and stability.
  • Create and maintain architectural documentation, including high-level design and configuration documents, architecture diagrams and technical specifications.
  • Defines enterprise technical standards & ensures adherence.
  • Communicate these effectively to stakeholders, ensuring everyone understands the rationale behind architectural choices and their implications.
  • Plays pivotal role in design, development, testing and deployment of the overall solution. Experience working collaboratively in a predominantly supplier-enabled, outsource technology delivery environment.   
  • Provides guidance and necessary clarifications to the boundary and integration systems and works with boundary and integration systems to troubleshoot and mitigate any source/destination issues and requirements. Perform root cause analysis with team.  
  • Analyze Patches and plan patch deployment activities.  

• Technology Strategy and Roadmap
  • Collaborate with product leadership teams to define and evolve the technology strategy and roadmap for the technology suite.
  • Identify emerging technologies and trends towards enhancing McDonald’s technology stack in the respective business area towards improving outcomes.
  • Provide guidance during evaluation and selection of new technologies, platforms and vendors.

• Collaborate with Cross-functional Teams
  • Foster collaboration with product managers, development teams, operations, security, and business units towards ensuring alignment between architectural vision and product development efforts.
  • Engage in regular communication and alignment meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page and working towards common goals.

• Implementation and Support
  • Oversee the implementation of architectural solutions and provide hands-on technical support and troubleshooting for complex issues, ensuring timeline resolution and minimal disruption to operations.

• Governance and Compliance
  • Establish and enforce frameworks, policies and standards to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and McDonald’s policies.
  • Identify potential risks and vulnerabilities in IT systems and propose mitigation strategies.
  • Work with cybersecurity experts to ensure that systems are resilient against cyber threats and comply with relevant regulations and standards.

Qualifications

Required :

• 8+ years of experience in solution architecture, with focus on large-scale, global technology environments
• 3+ years in a multi-jurisdictional environment with emphasis in Indirect Tax
• Experience with Vertex or other tax engines a plus
• Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, Information Technology, or a related field
• Deep understanding of Treasury applications and platforms as they relate between bank and client managing bank reporting and payment systems.
• Experience with cloud-native architecture.
• Demonstrated knowledge of large-scale integration in a QSR / Retail-like / Enterprise-Apps or BOS environment
• Knowledge of professional software engineering practices & best practices for the full software development life cycle, including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations.
• Strong knowledge of database technologies and data architecture principles
• Experience applying Product and Agile ways of working that includes best practices and lessons learned to standardize and refine ways of working.
• Highly experienced working collaboratively with business partners and product teams to drive outcomes and solve complex technical challenges, across a complex, global matrixed organization setup.  
• Possess effective communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong problem solving and innovation skills to identify, develop, and make improvements to techniques, procedures, services, or products.
• Strong positive thinking skills that include creating a safe environment to learn, challenge, accept risk taking and a willingness to be wrong.
• Relevant industry certifications are a plus.

Preferred :

• Experience in operational aspects of banking systems as it relates to Oracle ERP.
• Knowledge of FTP/H2H connections, encryption/decryptions, certificate renewals, Bank/Kyriba/ERP APIs, Swift Protocols Fin/FileAct channels, etc.
• Experience in connectivity projects and migrations including bank connections and third parties’ integrations to our clients (sftp, API, certificate renewal, encryption…).
• Understanding of Cash Management, Cash Positioning and Forecasting, Liquidity Management, Payments and Payment Interfaces.
• Understanding of technical protocols such as TCP/IP, LAN/WAN, SSO, SAML 2.0, API a plus.
• Ability to provide thought leadership around Kyriba / Vertex Best practices and industry trends to drive optimization and improve end user experience.
• Evaluate project constraints to identify risks/gaps to the proposed technical solution. 
• Understanding of integrations with Oracle EPM solutions with existing ERP systems and other enterprise applications.
• Proficiency with ITIL and Agile frameworks and tools (e.g. JIRA and Confluence)
• Experience in Creating and maintaining detailed technical documentation, including architecture diagrams, configuration guides, and user manuals.
• Experienced implementing and managing IT General Controls (ITGC) to ensure SOX compliance.  
• Foundational understanding/experience in security: security standards, SSO, SAML, OAUTH, etc. 
• Understanding of Cloud architecture and EPM cloud security. 
• Experience in DevOps, Security and Systems Performance desirable.