Director of Supply Chain Applications

National Vision•Alpharetta, GA

About The Position

The Director, Supply Chain Applications leads the design, development, implementation, support, and modernization of technology platforms that enable the company's supply chain operations. The role is accountable for the performance and long-term direction of the supply chain application portfolio, working with business and technology leaders to translate operational priorities into reliable, scalable solutions. The Director also guides the transition from legacy platforms to modern cloud-based solutions while maintaining business continuity, managing technology risk, and ensuring critical systems meet evolving business needs.

Requirements

At least 9 years of related experience working on IBM i (AS/400 / iSeries).
Demonstrated leadership of application development and support teams responsible for business-critical systems.
Demonstrated success leading enterprise application portfolios supporting supply chain, distribution, retail, merchandising, or other large-scale operational functions.
Extensive experience supporting and enhancing highly customized packaged applications with complex business rules, interfaces, and integration dependencies.
Proven experience leading supply chain or merchandising platform modernization, replacement, or migration initiatives in complex operational environments.
Four-year college degree or equivalent experience in information technology, computer science, or a related field.
Extensive hands-on RPG development experience on IBM i, including reading, debugging, evaluating, and providing technical direction for heavily customized legacy code.
Strong familiarity with older fixed-format RPG and experience with RPG III, RPG IV / ILE RPG, and newer RPG approaches, as applicable.
Strong working knowledge of CL, Db2 for i, DDS, physical and logical files, libraries, jobs, job queues, job logs, and batch-processing environments.
Substantial hands-on experience using ALDON for IBM i source management, change control, release governance, and application promotion.
Strong understanding of end-to-end supply chain processes, including purchasing, inventory management, replenishment, allocation, distribution, and fulfillment.
Proven ability to lead high-priority production incident resolution, root-cause analysis, corrective action, and long-term risk mitigation.
Ability to translate technical constraints and business needs into clear priorities, practical delivery plans, and well-supported investment decisions.
Working knowledge of SQL, EDI, APIs, file-based interfaces, and enterprise integration patterns.
Experience identifying, validating, and documenting business rules embedded within legacy source code.

Nice To Haves

Experience sunsetting a legacy JDA/IBM environment and migrating to a modern SaaS solution such as Oracle.

Responsibilities

Oversee development of critical applications and technology in support of the company’s long-term goals.
Own the supply chain application portfolio, including strategy, delivery, maintenance, production support, and lifecycle planning.
Oversee the customized JDA environment on IBM i (AS/400 / iSeries), including its applications and supporting business processes.
Provide technical direction and oversight for the customized JDA platform, including RPG programs, CL processing, database interactions, batch workflows, and interfaces.
Review complex code and application changes, assess downstream impacts, and guide troubleshooting of production issues.
Oversee source control, change management, and release processes within ALDON, including dependency management, approvals, environment promotion, deployment readiness, and rollback planning.
Partner with leaders across Supply Chain, Distribution, Merchandising, and Finance to translate operational requirements into scalable solutions, prioritized roadmaps, and technology investments.
Document critical business rules, customizations, interfaces, and operational dependencies to preserve institutional knowledge and reduce reliance on individual experts.
Define and maintain application development and support standards for solution design, coding, testing, documentation, production support, release management, and change control.
Partner with Infrastructure and Operations teams to strengthen application availability, performance, security, disaster recovery, business continuity, and batch-processing reliability.
Lead application modernization and transformation planning, including discovery, requirements analysis, process assessment, solution evaluation, data mapping, migration planning, and transition readiness.
Communicate application health, delivery progress, risks, and investment recommendations to business and technology leadership.
Assist in developing, reviewing, and ensuring compliance with IT policies and procedures, including project approval, signature authority, information security, disaster recovery, and business continuity.