Staff Solutions Architect

At Yum! Brands, we're seeking a Solutions Architect to help bolster our Architecture practice across our Byte platform and Brand Digital & Technology (D&T) teams. Your work will impact KFC, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill across US and international markets.

Department: Enterprise Architecture
Team: Digital & Technology 
Report to: Head of Enterprise Architecture

Job Summary:

As a Solutions Architect, you'll bolster our Architecture practice by conducting architecture reviews, reviewing and providing feedback on project intake, providing solution architecture guidance, and ensuring alignment between business goals and technology standards. You'll bridge communication between product owners and engineers, promote architectural best practices, drive architectural consistency, and guide solutions that enhance Byte platform profitability while ensuring efficient capital spend across Brand Digital & Technology initiatives.
 

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

Architecture Review & Consultation:

• Co-own the Organization wide Architecture Review Process. Evaluate project intake based on complexity, new capabilities, vendor involvement, and cross-team impact
• Connect project teams with appropriate reviewers and provide architectural guidance based on best practices to drive consistent standards across the organization.
• Ensure architecture reviews are completed promptly to meet our SLA targets
• Provide clear architectural recommendations and approvals through architecture reviews and consultation sessions.

Solution Architecture & Design:

• Drive innovation by identifying opportunities to leverage emerging technologies, including AI, and designing AI-driven solutions that enhance business capabilities, improve customer experiences, and support digital transformation initiatives.

• Support development teams with solution architecture activity, leading where necessary, crafting designs that align with our enterprise’s principles, leverage appropriate vendor capabilities and give great return on investment

• Offer architectural context to teams on their proposals

• Ensure solutions are scalable, secure, and conform to enterprise standards

Strategic Architecture Development:

• Align technology capabilities with business objectives while identifying standardization opportunities
• Map applications to business processes to support roadmapping and strategic planning
• Maximize platform value through architectural reuse and cross-brand feature sharing
• Support efficient capital spend across Brand D&T initiatives
• Establish Architectural governance frameworks and educational materials
• Develop adaptive Architectural governance frameworks that enable standardization while empowering agile delivery teams
• Contribute to EA charter and communication plans

Stakeholder Engagement:

• Build relationships between product owners and engineers across brands
• Communicate architectural concepts to diverse audiences from executives to developers
• Secure stakeholder buy-in for Architecture initiatives

Security & Compliance:

• Collaborate with security teams to integrate security considerations into architectural designs and promote secure coding practices across restaurant technologies

Platform Expertise:

• Apply knowledge of federated GraphQL platforms to support brand-specific needs
• Enable co-creation between global and regional technology teams

Qualifications

Required Skills & Experience:

• 7+ years Solution Architecture experience
  • Experience crafting solutions that advocate secure software development practices in domains sensitive to CCPA, GDPR, PCI, and global tax regulations
• Strong communication skills with ability to influence stakeholders at all levels (c-suite to junior engineers) with small and large audiences across the enterprise
• Experience proactively connecting with teams to drive consistency across federated organizational structures
• Ability to bridge technical and business perspectives to drive innovative solutions
• Working knowledge of AWS, IaC, SQL, GraphQL, GIT, DataDog

Desired Skills & Experience:

• Experience with GoLang, NodeJS, TypeScript, or Rust and Terraform
• Experience designing and implementing AI-driven solutions and integrating AI capabilities into existing platforms
• Experience designing and implementing across a broad range of tech ecosystems such as federated GraphQL, POS, Kitchen Systems, IoT, Edge Computing, Martech, real time data analytics.
• Experience influencing secure coding activity, supporting vulnerability assessments, and guiding appropriate use of firewalls, WAFs, CDNs and DAMs. 
• Experience in a related industry or a strong willingness to learn the specifics of the restaurant/QSR sector undergoing digital transformation
• Familiarity with restaurant technology ecosystems

Personal Attributes:

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to present ideas compellingly and influence stakeholders at all levels (c-suite to junior engineers).
• Flexibility and a willingness to get into details and function as a strategic architecture and technical leader as necessary on a project-by-project basis.
• Ability to learn, adopt, document and enhance concepts, patterns and standards established by current architecture and engineering leadership.
• Ability to present concepts, standards and solutions in group and individual settings in a convincing way that drives their drive adoption.
• Ability to inspire and guide teams towards a shared vision, fostering a sense of purpose and direction.
• Skilled in delivering feedback and making clear, firm decisions with professionalism, including the ability to pushback when necessary while maintaining positive relationships.
• Strong analytical thinking and proactive, results-focused approach.
• Ability to work independently while considering broader team dynamics, ensuring effective collaboration and decision-making.
• Effective at mentoring and providing actionable guidance for less experienced team members.

Salary Range: $148,900 to $186,500 annually + bonus eligibility. This is the expected salary range for this position. Ultimately, in determining pay, we'll consider the successful candidate’s location, experience, and other job-related factors.