Sr. Solution Architect – Customer Technology

USG Corporation•Chicago, IL

43d•$119,880 - $159,840•Hybrid

About The Position

USG is building the data and technology foundation for a next-generation digital customer platform. The Sr. Solution Architect translates complex business requirements, commercial goals, and customer experience needs into technical architecture and phased roadmaps, and drives the related decisions. The role owns architecture across customer technology domains and connects business stakeholders with development and data teams. This is a business-facing and technical leadership role, involving regular conversations with business leaders as well as architecture design sessions. The architect communicates complex technical topics in plain language and prepares and influences decisions on data platform architecture, web platform capabilities, and integration strategy. The position reports directly to the Senior Director of Technology and serves as a senior technical voice and Customer Technology expert across the organization. The role works across USG regions, supporting digital transformation for customers in the US, Canada, and LATAM, and collaborates with the parent company, Knauf. USG offers a hybrid workplace, with an office location in Chicago, Illinois. Minimal travel may be required.

Requirements

10 or more years of experience in technology roles, including at least 5 years in lead solution architecture, enterprise architecture, or application development.
Demonstrated ability to translate business strategy into technical architecture and phased delivery roadmaps.
Proven experience architecting and integrating end-to-end customer-facing technology solutions spanning CMS, PIM, CRM, eCommerce, Digital Asset Management (DAM), and Customer Data Platform (CDP).
Experience in global organizations and ability to align architectures with standardized technology stacks, governance, and regional requirements.
Experience working in complex enterprise environments and integration-heavy ecosystems.
Ability to design architecture for enterprise-scale digital solutions.
Ability to produce clear, actionable architecture documentation and solution diagrams, using tools such as Lucidchart, Visio, or Miro, and to guide cross-functional development and data teams.
Practical application of MACH architecture principles—Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless—and event-driven, asynchronous patterns.
Experience designing data architectures for operational needs and downstream analytical use cases.
Exceptional communication skills, including the ability to synthesize complex technical concepts for technical and non-technical audiences, drive consensus, and deliver results in a matrixed global environment.
Demonstrated technical leadership through mentoring developers, developing and reviewing designs, and elevating architectural maturity across delivery teams.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills to articulate architecture decisions, trade-offs, and integration strategies to technical and executive stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience with event streaming and CDC patterns in enterprise environments.
Experience architecting in Azure cloud environments.
Exposure to Oracle EBS and ERP modernization or coexistence strategies.
Experience designing or governing integration platforms or middleware layers such as iPaaS, Kafka, or ESB.

Responsibilities

Translate business requirements, commercial goals, and customer experience needs into technical solution architecture, decisions, and phased roadmaps.
Partner with stakeholders across sales operations, marketing, and customer service to understand capability needs.
Own the architecture narrative and create clear documentation and presentations that make technical decisions accessible to executive audiences.
Identify technology constraints on business growth and propose solutions to remove them.
Align solutions with USG’s global technology stack, architecture standards, and compliance requirements, collaborating with international IT and business teams.
Define and own solution architecture across the data platform, web platform, eCommerce, Salesforce, integration, and martech domains.
Develop architecture documentation, process flows, and data models to guide developers and data teams.
Harmonize platform, process, and data architecture across the customer technology stack, from user interface through backend data flows.
Collaborate with Knauf to set architecture standards and patterns for development teams, and evaluate technologies and vendors against strategic direction and existing investments.
Ensure architecture decisions account for scalability, security, operational complexity, and total cost of ownership.
Produce and maintain a technology roadmap that sequences capability delivery against business priorities.
Work with product and technical leads to translate architecture and solution concepts into delivery backlogs, sequencing, and milestones.
Identify and surface technical dependencies, risks, and decision gates that affect delivery timelines.
Own architecture through delivery, not only the design phase.
Serve as a senior technical advisor to the Senior Director of Technology and broader leadership.
Build credibility with business and IT stakeholders through clear thinking and consistent follow-through.
Challenge proposals from vendors, colleagues, and partners with rigor and intellectual honesty.
Mentor developers and analysts in architecture thinking and systems design.

Benefits

Two medical insurance options.
Vision coverage.
Dental coverage.
Medical, vision, and dental coverage options available from the first day of employment with no waiting period; employees generally pay 25% of the monthly premium and USG pays the remainder.
401(k) Investment Plan with company match.
Pension plan.
Life insurance.
Accident insurance.
Legal insurance.
Pet insurance.
Performance-based quarterly bonus potential for hourly employees and annual bonus potential for salaried employees.
Paid time off.
Paid holidays.