Senior Staff IT Engineer

AO Swag•Coppell, TX

About The Position

AO Swag is building an internal IT core to reduce vendor dependency, stabilize a complex legacy environment, and support the next phase of growth. The Senior Staff IT Engineer is a hands on senior individual contributor role responsible for owning core systems, integrations, and operational reliability while partnering closely with business leaders and junior engineers. This role sits between strategy and execution. It is not a people manager, but it is a technical leader with real ownership. The expectation is to build, run, document, and improve systems that the business depends on every day. This role works closely with the CEO, IT leadership, application engineers, and selected vendors, with a clear mandate to internalize knowledge and reduce long term external dependency.

Requirements

8 to 12 plus years of hands on engineering experience in production environments
Strong backend and systems experience with modern languages and frameworks
Experience building and operating integrations between complex systems
Comfort working in imperfect, partially documented environments
Experience stabilizing legacy systems while building toward a future state
Strong debugging and problem solving instincts
Clear written communication and documentation habits

Nice To Haves

Experience with ecommerce, ERP, logistics, or manufacturing systems
Experience with cloud infrastructure and CI CD pipelines
Experience supporting compliance driven environments such as PCI or SOC
Experience working in small, lean internal teams replacing vendor led models

Responsibilities

Operational ownership and stability
Own day to day reliability of core systems including order flows, integrations, infrastructure, and internal tools
Diagnose and resolve production issues without defaulting to vendors
Create and maintain runbooks, system documentation, and incident response playbooks
Reduce recurring issues and operational noise through automation and simplification
Platform and integration leadership
Help own and evolve AO’s integration layer connecting ecommerce, ERP, fulfillment, and third party systems
Design and build reliable APIs, services, and workflows with a focus on traceability and failure handling
Ensure integrations are understandable, observable, and supportable by internal teams
Legacy transition support
Work alongside vendors and internal staff to absorb institutional knowledge from legacy systems
Help isolate and stabilize legacy platforms while supporting migration and modernization efforts
Ensure knowledge transfer results in internal capability, not vendor lock in
Security, access, and controls
Partner with IT leadership and external security resources to improve access control, credential management, and audit readiness
Support PCI posture improvements through system level controls and documentation
Help move ownership of systems and accounts away from vendors and into AO
Internal capability building
Mentor and support application engineers including current staff and future hires
Set technical standards for code quality, documentation, and operational readiness
Help establish a culture of ownership, clarity, and accountability within IT