Mgr Business Systems

Grainger Businesses • Lake Forest, IL

8d • $112,900 - $188,100 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Manager, Business Systems Engineering – Commercial Applications is responsible for providing strategic and technical leadership for Grainger’s commercial applications ecosystem, including Vistex, Icertis CLM, SAP, and related platforms supporting incentive compensation, rebates, supplier funding, cost support, contract lifecycle management, revenue management, and commercial operations. This leader partners closely with Product, Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture, and business stakeholders to deliver technology solutions that drive measurable business outcomes while maintaining high standards of engineering excellence, platform sustainability, security, resiliency, and operational performance. The role leads a team of software engineers, business analysts, and support professionals, fostering a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, accountability, and technical excellence. The Manager is accountable for developing engineering talent, influencing technical strategy, modernizing platforms and practices, and ensuring delivery of scalable, reliable, and secure technology solutions aligned with Grainger’s strategic priorities.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Engineering, MIS, or a related field.
• 8+ years of progressive experience leading software engineering, application development, or business systems engineering teams.
• Demonstrated success building, coaching, and developing high-performing engineering organizations.
• Experience leading enterprise-scale business applications and technology platforms in complex environments.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, systems integration, cloud technologies, cybersecurity, resiliency, observability, and modern software engineering practices.
• Experience driving platform modernization, technical debt reduction, automation, and operational excellence initiatives.
• Proven ability to influence technical direction and architecture decisions across multiple technology domains.
• Experience managing Agile and DevOps teams with responsibility for delivery, operations, and continuous improvement.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills with the ability to influence leaders across business and technology organizations.
• Experience leading geographically distributed teams, including employee, contractor, onshore, and offshore resources.
• Strong analytical and strategic problem-solving skills with the ability to balance business priorities and technical considerations.
• Experience supporting commercial business capabilities such as incentive compensation, rebates, pricing, contract lifecycle management, procurement, finance, revenue management, or supplier funding is preferred.
• Experience with SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA, SAP CLM, Vistex, Icertis CLM, or similar enterprise platforms is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Build and develop a high-performing engineering organization through coaching, mentoring, succession planning, performance management, and intentional career development.
• Consistently raise the engineering talent bar through hiring, talent reviews, workforce planning, and growth opportunities for engineers and technical leaders.
• Foster a culture of innovation, collaboration, continuous learning, and engineering excellence where technical curiosity and creative problem-solving are encouraged.
• Provide leadership and guidance to engineers, architects, application managers, business analysts, and support teams while establishing clear goals, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
• Develop organizational capacity plans and sourcing strategies that balance employee, contractor, and offshore resources to meet evolving business and portfolio demands.
• Partner with leadership to proactively forecast staffing needs and ensure organizational readiness for future business and technology initiatives.
• Partner with Product and Portfolio Management to define and execute technology roadmaps, investment priorities, and modernization strategies that align with business objectives and enterprise architecture standards.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to engineers, analysts, architects, and application leaders, ensuring sound architecture decisions, scalable design patterns, sustainable platforms, and alignment to enterprise engineering standards.
• Influence architecture decisions, integration strategies, data models, security approaches, and platform evolution across the commercial technology ecosystem.
• Drive modernization initiatives focused on cloud adoption, automation, observability, resiliency, technical debt reduction, security posture improvements, and operational efficiency.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends to identify opportunities that improve business outcomes and strengthen competitive advantage.
• Lead the delivery, support, and continuous improvement of commercial application platforms, including Vistex, Icertis CLM, SAP, SAP S/4HANA, Vistex V4, and related integrations.
• Establish and maintain software engineering standards, development practices, application lifecycle management processes, and operational governance frameworks.
• Champion modern engineering practices including Agile delivery, DevOps, CI/CD automation, automated testing, observability, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Ensure solutions are delivered with high quality, delivery predictability, operational reliability, and measurable business value.
• Oversee production support, release management, incident management, service performance, and operational excellence activities.
• Lead cross-functional recovery efforts during critical incidents and ensure effective communication, root cause analysis, and long-term corrective actions.
• Establish and monitor engineering, operational, and business performance metrics to evaluate system health, service quality, adoption, reliability, and value realization.
• Serve as a trusted technology advisor to leaders across Sales, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Compliance, Vendor Management, Pricing, Salesforce and other commercial business functions.
• Partner with business stakeholders to identify opportunities for process optimization, automation, digital transformation, and improved user experiences.
• Support governance processes that align technology investments with business priorities, strategic objectives, and expected value realization.
• Translate business objectives into scalable, secure, and sustainable technology capabilities that improve commercial operations and decision-making.
• Ensure compliance with SOX, audit, regulatory, legal, privacy, and security requirements through effective controls, governance, and risk management practices.
• Manage strategic relationships with technology vendors, consulting partners, and service providers to ensure strong service delivery, platform performance, and business outcomes.
• Align with product centric operating model in influencing product prioritization, and balancing business features versus technical investments.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans with coverage starting on day one of employment
• 6 free sessions each year with a licensed therapist to support your emotional wellbeing.
• 18 paid time off (PTO) days annually for full-time employees (accrual prorated based on employment start date)
• 6 company holidays per year.
• 6% company contribution to a 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan each pay period, no employee contribution required.
• Employee discounts
• Tuition reimbursement
• Student loan refinancing
• Free access to financial counseling, education, and tools.
• Maternity support programs
• Nursing benefits
• up to 14 weeks paid leave for birth parents
• up to 4 weeks paid leave for non-birth parents.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager