First Quality

First Quality was founded in 1989 and has grown to be a global privately held company with over 4,000 employees. Its corporate offices are located in Great Neck, New York, with manufacturing facilities and offices in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Georgia, and Canada. First Quality is a diversified family of companies manufacturing consumer products ranging from Absorbent Hygiene (adult incontinence, feminine care, and baby care), Tissue (bath and towel), and Industrial (print and packaging materials), serving institutional and retail markets throughout the world. First Quality focuses on private label and branded product lines.

We are seeking a Solution Architect – Integration for our First Quality Enterprises working remotely. The Enterprise Data Team provides strategic direction, technical/functional expertise, and product management for First Quality’s Data, Analytics and Integration systems and Machine Learning applications. The Solution Architect – Integration, as a key member of the Enterprise Data Team, provides functional and technical leadership for the definition, design, and delivery of First Quality’s Integration systems. This position is responsible for defining integration architecture, system integration standards and governance frameworks for a large integration systems portfolio across the enterprise.

The Solution Architect – Integration is responsible for maintaining standards and best practices for enterprise integration systems. The incumbent will design and develop integration frameworks of varied levels of complexity working directly with business teams and other Solution Architects. The person in this role will interact with all areas of First Quality to define business requirements, scope solutions, develop specifications, and delivery of solutions. This position is the go-to contact for their assigned integration system specialization and, as such, serves as the ultimate support escalation point for their assigned system(s). The person in this position owns their assigned system(s) and interacts with all divisions within First Quality. This position will be held accountable for the training, education, and execution of integration systems with the goal to fully utilize their capabilities.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Design, document, and implement integration solutions for enterprise applications, cloud platforms and 3rd party services.
• Define integration patterns that best suit business requirements (Middleware, EDI, APIs, ETL etc.)
• Develop scalable, reusable, and maintainable integration components and services.
• Lead the integration efforts of various systems such as ERPs, CRM, Manufacturing, legacy applications, and cloud services.
• Work with EDI technology stack in support of communications, data transformation and integrations between different systems.
• Work closely with business to gather requirements and design integration solutions that meet business needs.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance during the implementation of integration solutions.
• Evaluate and recommend integration technologies, middleware, and platforms.
• Ensure integration solutions align with organizational standards, security policies and performance requirements.
• Familiarity with security protocols and best practices for integration (OAuth, SSL, encryption etc.)
• Knowledge of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, data mapping, and data synchronization between systems.
• Lead the configuration and customization of the integration platforms as needed.
• Define and enforce best practices for integration design, development, testing and deployment.
• Identify and resolve integration related issues.
• Optimize existing integration flows for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Implement monitoring and alerting systems to proactively detect integration issues.
• Create comprehensive documentation for integration solutions, including architecture diagrams, data mappings, API specifications, and deployment procedures.
• Work with external and internal teams to resolve infrastructure-related issues when developing integration modules.
• Implement DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines across all integration systems.
• Ability to communicate complex ideas in simple terms, and effectively interact with decision makers

The ideal candidate should possess the following:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• Deep understanding of integration architectures, system integration standards and governance frameworks for managing a enterprise integration portfolio.
• Proven experience in setting up integration architecture and managing large-scale integration projects.
• Proficiency with multiple integration platforms and middleware (Microsoft Azure Integration Services, MuleSoft, Boomi etc.)
• Experience with interpreting EDI standards and guidelines.
• Strong understanding of API management, REST and SOAP web services and message queuing.
• Knowledge of enterprise service buses (ESBs) and service-oriented architecture (SOA)
• Experience with cloud integration platforms and services (Azure, AWS, GCP).
• Knowledge with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience working with different ERPs and knowledge of standard business processes.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills.
• Prior experience in the Manufacturing Industry preferred.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills with the ability to troubleshoot and resolve complex integration related issues.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively with stakeholders at all levels.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced and dynamic environment

May need to travel to manufacturing sites and other First Quality locations to address IT analytics needs

First Quality is committed to protecting information under the care of First Quality Enterprises commensurate with leading industry standards and applicable regulations. As such, First Quality provides at least annual training regarding data privacy and security to employees who, as a result of their role specifications, may come in to contact with sensitive data.

First Quality is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identification, or protected Veteran status.