Application Engineer III – D&L

Associated Wholesale Grocers•Kansas City, KS

12h•Hybrid

About The Position

Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG) is looking for a Solution Engineer III in Information Technology (IT) to provide development, integration, and application oversight for strategic technical solutions within our Distribution & Logistics (D&L) department. The Solution Engineer III role is a customer-facing role serving as an advisor, subject-matter expert, and delivery partner for our internal business units. As an experienced Engineer with a focus on solution implementation, you’ll be responsible for guiding our internal customers from concept to go-live and rollout. You are a passionate technologist who keeps up to date on the latest technologies, can dive deeply into business processes, and loves applying your skills to solve complex operational challenges. Working alongside department leadership, you will act as a key technical anchor to design modern integration layers (including Azure, Java Spring Boot, REST APIs, and modern front-end frameworks) while helping to mentor and guide our established development team through modern technology transitions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, or related technical degree.
5+ years of application development experience, with a proven track record of designing, developing, and implementing high-performing, large-scale, and complex systems, including integration with third-party applications.
Strong proficiency in Java and Spring Boot frameworks, familiarity with cloud ecosystem services, preferably Microsoft Azure (such as Logic Apps and messaging infrastructure), solid experience working with relational databases and writing SQL, familiarity with front-end JavaScript environments (e.g. React).
Strong understanding of event-based/message architectures, data integration techniques, and HTTP request/response lifecycles, familiarity with cloud security and virtual networking basics (such as VNets, IAM roles, and access controls).
Accomplished interpersonal and communication skills, demonstrating a clear and articulate standard of written and verbal communications to various levels of business and technical audiences, organized with a strong architectural mindset and a dedication to IT best practices.
High Initiative: Ability to work independently as a self-starter who is highly motivated and resourceful when diving into complex, undocumented systems.
Patient Mentor: A strong passion and patience to mentor, pair-program, and grow the skillsets of legacy developers transitioning to modern stacks.
Collaborative: Ability to work as a committed member of a cross-functional team, sharing ideas and inputs to deliver an exceptional product experience while excelling with remote team members.

Nice To Haves

Retail, wholesale, or Consumer Product Goods industry experience
Experience integrating and supporting large-scale enterprise vendor software (such as Warehouse Management Systems, ERP solutions, and other transportation and logistics oriented software packages)
Knowledge of modern DevOps technologies, CI/CD pipelines, and version control (Git, Jenkins, Ansible, etc.)

Responsibilities

Serve as the subject matter expert and go-to resource for designing and delivering integrated solutions and implementation best practices.
Responsible for overall system-wide resiliency, scalability, data strategy, stability and operational efficiency of solutions.
Develop high-quality technical solutions that address the customer’s needs while aligning with industry best practices and approved technology stacks.
Monitor performance and optimize resources to ensure maximum uptime, high availability, and cost-effectiveness across hybrid cloud/on-prem environments.
Serve as a tier-3 technical resource to analyze, diagnose, and resolve complex application issues and bugs, organically researching solutions when direct documentation is unavailable.
Regularly self-analyze project successes and failures to develop metrics, feedback loops, and corrective actions for systemic improvement.
Experiment with new solutions and cloud best practices to bridge operational gaps and help the workgroup adapt to a changing application landscape.
Partner closely with development teammates to mentor them, share modern software engineering practices, and engage with the team on how to create more efficient and effective applications and processes.
Collaborate directly with internal customers and business partners to deeply understand their business problems, operational workflows, and desired outcomes.
Evaluate technology acquisitions designed to optimize feature/function for long term supportability, vendor viability and total cost of ownership.
Drive technical resolution and integration coordination with third-party technology vendors when support or customization is needed during software rollouts.