Senior Solutions Architect (Applications)

Southern Company • Atlanta, GA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

ASCEND Program Information: Southern Company is committed to building the future of energy for the customers who depend on us, the communities we serve and the industry we lead. The ASCEND program will transform how we do business, helping us elevate the customer experience, adapt to industry changes, and implement technology that offers new capabilities with more agility. It will involve implementing multiple applications, including the replacement of our meter data management (MDM) and customer service systems (CSS) with a new, Oracle customer information system (CIS) called customer to meter (C2M). Additionally, it includes implementing an advanced analytics platform, customer experience (CX) and commercial engagement platform (CEP). The new platform, to be rolled out to Alabama Power, Georgia Power and Mississippi Power, will be implemented in phases. Currently, we are building an ASCEND organization dedicated to helping the electric operating companies realize the vision for a modernized, efficient, digital customer experience to deeply engage with our customers and provide a more personalized experience. ASCEND will be one of the most comprehensive Customer Service and Marketing transformation initiatives in our company’s history. The successful candidate will remain an employee of the operating company while reporting to the CIS/MDM Program Team and may report to a SCS or operating company leader for delivery. Positions within the CIS Program will be filled based on the job requirements and the business needs and overall project scope. Solution Architect (C2M Architect) — Job Description Position Summary The ASCEND Solution Architect (C2M Architect) is responsible for end-to-end solution architecture, configuration design governance, and cross-functional leadership for the Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) solution. This role partners Southern’s business and technology stakeholders across multiple functional areas to ensure solutions are scalable, supportable, secure, and aligned to business outcomes, with particular emphasis on C2M configuration expertise and strong understanding of the C2M data model. This position serves as a key architecture point of contact for C2M, providing direction across ASCEND functional and technical teams for requirements translation, design, configuration, integration patterns, testing strategy, and production support. They will work with both the enhancement/scrum teams as well as the fix/triage teams across the various functional areas.

Requirements

• 10+ years' experience with Oracle Utilities C2M, including configuration ownership and data model-driven analysis.
• Experience designing solutions that span multiple functional areas and integrating enterprise systems.
• Experience with structured delivery practices: requirements-to-design traceability, testing support, release management, and production support.
• 10+ years Utility industry experience (meter-to-cash, customer operations, billing, payments, collections, metering/MDM touchpoints).
• High degree of initiative and personal responsibility - “owns result/solution end-to-end.”
• Strong desire to learn the business, continuously improve, and mentor others through architecture leadership.
• Strong ability to partner with business leaders and technical teams, building trust and driving decisions across stakeholders.
• Demonstrated strengths in systems thinking, impact analysis, and end-to-end ownership of solutions.
• Proven ability to lead through ambiguity, manage multiple priorities, and influence without direct authority.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including technical writing and design documentation.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with a production mindset (stability, operability, maintainability).

Responsibilities

• Own the C2M solution architecture across multiple functional domains, ensuring alignment to enterprise standards and project/program objectives.
• Lead end-to-end design spanning business processes, configuration, integrations, reporting, batch, and operational support considerations.
• Provide design governance: patterns, standards, guardrails, design reviews, and sign-off for major configuration and integration decisions.
• Demonstrate working architecture knowledge across several C2M functional areas such as: Billing & Rates for various customer classes, Customer, Accounts, Persons, Premise/service location concepts, Service agreements, start/stop/move, billing determinants, billing/adjustments, Payments, credit & collections, financial transactions, Meter-to-cash business process touchpoints, meter data/Metering integration concepts, Customer service operations and workflow enablement (e.g., To Do / case-like orchestration).
• Translate business objectives and process needs into configuration and data model impacts across these domains.
• Serve as the configuration authority for C2M design and changes, including (as applicable): Business objects and relationships; lifecycle/state models, Algorithms, plug-ins, and configuration-driven rules, To Do entries, routing, and operational controls, UI configurations and user experience enablement through configuration, Batch and scheduled processing design considerations.
• Ensure configuration changes are traceable to requirements, testable, and supportable in production.
• Apply strong understanding of the C2M data model to: Perform impact analysis for enhancements/defects, Guide data migration mappings and validation strategies, Support reporting/analytics requirements through correct source-of-truth definitions, Establish data quality checks and operational monitoring considerations.
• Partner with data and integration teams to ensure data integrity and lineage across upstream/downstream systems.
• Define integration approaches (APIs, services, events/file-based where applicable) in partnership with integration and platform teams; ensure patterns meet security, reliability, and performance needs.
• Collaborate with developers and engineers on extension strategy and technical implementation approach, while keeping configuration-first principles where appropriate.
• Provide architectural leadership for testing approach (SIT/UAT), defect triage, and root-cause analysis, ensuring solutions meet quality and operational standards.
• Support production readiness including deployment planning, release governance, operational handoffs, and stability/defect reduction.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed