Solution Architect, Customer Data and MarTech

Academy • Katy, TX

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Academy Sports + Outdoors is seeking a Solution Architect specializing in Customer Data and MarTech. This role is crucial for defining and delivering solution architectures for customer data platforms, customer master data, customer 360 views, marketing automation, personalization, and attribution ecosystems. The architect will establish target-state architectures, ensure seamless integration between various marketing and data platforms, and govern identity resolution and consent management. Responsibilities include architecting real-time and batch decisioning frameworks, defining data and content technology strategies, enabling first-party data activation for retail media networks, evaluating MarTech/AdTech platforms, and driving innovation in MarTech, AdTech, and AI. The role requires serving as a design authority, ensuring scalability, security, and compliance, and collaborating closely with Marketing, Product, IT, Data Science, and vendors. Regular in-office attendance is required.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field (master’s degree a plus).
• 8+ years of experience in customer data, data engineering, or MarTech domains, with at least 3 years in marketing technology architecture, including personalization and customer engagement solutions.
• MarTech data domain expert skilled in customer data, clickstream, identity resolution, segmentation, and activation across owned, paid, and partner channels.
• Proven expertise in CDP (COTS or in-house), Customer Master Data management, CRM/loyalty systems, and Customer 360 solutions.
• Experience defining identity resolution strategies (first-party, hybrid, and third-party) and understanding tradeoffs across CDP, data warehouse, and external identity providers.
• Experience implementing privacy, consent management, and data governance frameworks, including consent enforcement and data lineage.
• Experience designing architectures for personalization, ML decisioning, loyalty programs, closed-loop measurement, and attribution.
• Hands-on experience with marketing automation platforms (ESP/SMS/Push) integrated with customer data and analytics platforms.
• End-to-end experience across the MarTech and AdTech stack, spanning CDP, Customer Master Data, personalization engines, paid media platforms, analytics, attribution, and customer data activation.
• Background integrating CMS/DAM platforms with personalization and engagement ecosystems.
• Experience supporting Retail Media Networks (RMN), audience monetization, and paid media activation using first-party data.
• Experience evaluating and selecting MarTech /AdTech platforms, including build vs buy decisions and vendor architecture assessments.
• Skilled in high-volume, high-velocity data ingestion architectures (batch and streaming).
• Experience working with Data Science teams to operationalize ML models into customer-facing workflows.
• Proficiency with MarTech/AdTech platforms such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Cloud, Braze, HubSpot, Google Analytics, or similar ecosystems.
• Customer Data: Customer Data Platforms, Customer Data Warehouse, Customer Master Data, Customer 360
• Identity Resolution: First-party, hybrid, and third-party identity graphs, deterministic and probabilistic matching
• Marketing Platforms: ESP/SMS/Push, CRM, CMS/DAM, personalization, and decisioning engines
• AdTech/Media: Paid media platforms, attribution frameworks, Retail Media Networks, audience activation
• Cloud Platforms: GCP preferred (AWS/Azure acceptable)
• Integration Patterns: APIs, microservices, event-driven architectures (Kafka, Pub/Sub)
• Data Platforms: Data lakes, data warehouses, Lakehouse patterns, structured and unstructured databases
• Customer Data Governance: Consent management, data lineage, auditability, data contracts
• Architecture Strategy: Build vs buy evaluation, platform scalability, cost optimization, real-time vs batch tradeoffs
• AI/GenAI adoption: Leveraging AI/GenAI across marketing use cases and software development to drive personalization, automation, and engineering efficiency.
• Process Automation: DevOps, AIOps & automation frameworks for Martech
• Excellent communication and presentation skills with the ability to simplify complex concepts for business and executive stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving, creativity, and ability to balance technical rigor with business value.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree
• Exposure to AI-driven engagement, automation, and GenAI is considered a plus.

Responsibilities

• Define and deliver solution architectures for CDP, Customer Master Data, Customer 360, marketing automation, personalization, and attribution ecosystems.
• Establish target-state architecture across CDP, Data Warehouse, and Customer Master Data with clear separation of concerns between data mastering, activation, and analytics.
• Ensure seamless connectivity between MarTech platforms, AdTech tools, data platforms, CMS/DAM systems, and analytics ecosystems.
• Define and govern identity resolution, enterprise customer ID strategy, and consent enforcement, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations and enterprise data policies.
• Architect real-time and batch decisioning frameworks, enabling scalable personalization, experimentation, and ML-driven customer engagement.
• Define standards for data flows, identity management, customer mastering approaches, and content governance across platforms.
• Enable first-party data activation across paid media and Retail Media Networks, supporting audience creation, targeting, and monetization.
• Evaluate MarTech and AdTech platforms, drive build vs buy decisions, and optimize platform usage and cost, including CDP unit economics.
• Stay ahead of trends in MarTech, AdTech, AI, and analytics, recommending new technologies and approaches that drive measurable business outcomes.
• Serve as design authority for customer data and marketing technology, ensuring scalability, security, compliance, and alignment with enterprise architecture standards.
• Partner with Marketing, Product, IT, Data Science, and vendors to align on roadmaps, define capability-driven Architecture models, and deliver reusable, scalable solutions.
• Acceptable level of hearing and vision to perform job duties
• Adhere to company work hours, policies, procedures, and rules governing professional staff behavior
• Regular in-office attendance is required.

What This Job Offers

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