Principal Enterprise Architect

Columbia Sportswear Company; Portland (OR); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Columbia Sportswear Company, headquartered near Portland, Oregon, seeks a Principal Enterprise Architect to drive the blueprinting of digital transformations across brands. You will partner with engineering teams, other architects, and business leaders to design modern, resilient, and cost-optimized solutions.

The role emphasizes cloud platforms (AWS/Azure), API-first approaches, and governance, with mentoring and guiding enterprise-wide standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years in technology-focused roles with increasing responsibility.
• 5+ years in technology architect or engineering leadership.
• Experience with enterprise-scale applications and cloud-based services.

Responsibilities

• Design and communicate enterprise integration strategy aligned with product roadmaps.
• Provide architectural governance and mentoring across teams.
• Collaborate with vendors, engineers, and business leaders to deliver scalable solutions.
• Evaluate new technologies to drive cost savings and performance.

Skills

Technical leadership

Cloud architecture

API design

Enterprise integration

Stakeholder management

Agile methodologies

Cross-functional collaboration

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field

Tools

AWS

Microsoft Azure

REST APIs

Job description

This position is designated as a hybrid role based out of our headquarters near Portland, Oregon. The current expectation is for employees to work onsite four days per week, subject to change based on business needs. This in-office requirement may be adjusted at the discretion of the company.**OUTGROWN YOUR OWN BACKYARD? COME PLAY IN OURS.**At Columbia, we’re as passionate about the outdoors as you are. And while our gear is available worldwide, we’re proud to be based in the Pacific Northwest, where natural wonders are our playground. Every product we make and every task we undertake is inspired by the famous words of our founder Gert Boyle: “It’s perfect. Now make it better.” As pioneers of relentless improvement, we are constantly evolving. We believe the outdoors is ours to protect and strive to keep our planet healthy. We believe in empowering people to experience the outdoors to the fullest. And we believe in you.**ABOUT THE POSITION**The Enterprise Architecture team is at the heart of blueprinting the digital transformation of Columbia Sportswear, Mountain Hardware, Sorel, and Prana brands. We serve our business and technical partners through strategic integrated planning and end-to-end solutions to accelerate feature delivery for critical initiatives. As the Principal Enterprise Architect, you will collaborate to design and connect solutions across the enterprise that will transform our technical footprint. You will be vital in crafting the future integration architecture for our platforms across the company. You will partner with engineering teams, other architects, and business leaders to design modern, forward-looking, and resilient, integrated solutions that meet business objectives. Solutions will be extensible, operationally excellent, cost-optimized, and aligned with architectural design principles. The ideal candidate will have a passion for discovering and documenting opportunities for growth and efficiency, adopt a continuous learning environment, and provide strategic advantage through innovative solutions, storytelling, building collaborative and inclusive partnerships, and transitional architectures. **HOW YOU’LL MAKE A DIFFERENCE*** Partner with engineering leadership to provide expert technical recommendations and build an architectural plan in consideration of product roadmaps and Columbia’s strategic vision* Strong bias to balance tactical timelines, cost, and risks* Strengthen architecture literacy through shared principles, reusable patterns, architecture guidance, and consistent service and API design practices* Advocate and drive adoption of architectural and engineering best practices and standards at Columbia* Architecture liaison for business teams, technical teams, and Columbia leadership. Provide technical mentoring, guidance, and training throughout the organization* Monitor IT trends to identify new capabilities with a focus on simplifying and maintaining a modern enterprise integration platform.* Leverage research, case studies, and prototypes to develop leading edge, connected solutions that increase business value. Work closely with other architects and engineering to resolve IT architectural issues, mitigate risks, and optimize cost savings and efficiencies* Support engineering teams and ensure solid technical architecture in consistency to company’s architecture principles. Provide input to technical designs and specifications* Engage with external vendors and their technology teams to ensure architectural integration standards align with CDT’s standards**YOU ARE*** A thought leader that is consultative in their approach* An influencer that can drive common vision, practices, and capabilities across teams* Passionate about cloud platform and solutions* Able to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical staff* A creative strategic thinker with the ability to solve complex problems; able to exercise independent judgment in a highly complex global environment using leading-edge technology and/or integrating diverse systems* Able to demonstrate excellent interpersonal, negotiating and marketing skills to work with users, senior management, and external personnel on significant matters, often requiring coordinated activity across functional and organizational lines**YOU HAVE*** Bachelor's degree in business administration, Computer Science, Information Systems, or equivalent experience* 10+ years increasingly responsible professional experience in technology-related field* 5+ years in technology architect or engineering leadership roles providing design leadership to technical, business, & cross-functional initiatives* Familiarity with enterprise-scale applications supporting critical product creation, supply chain and corporate technology capabilities* Demonstrated competency in end-to-end (Ideation, design, build, operate) experience integrating enterprise applications together using cloud based services and APIs, using modern programming languages and frameworks in C#, Java, or NodeJS* Highly skilled at creating compelling integration architecture presentations covering enterprise scale vendor packaged applications, native cloud-based applications (custom or vendor managed), services and other applications* Expertise in agile methodologies* Familiarity with leading enterprise cloud architectures in AWS or Microsoft Azure* Demonstrated influencing leadership skills expressed through teamwork, facilitation, active listening, as well as multi-modal communication (written, visualization, and verbal) with customers* Strong team orientation and ability to thrive on virtual, international, cross-functional teams* Experienced in facilitating meetings with multiple customers and technical staff, including building consensus, defining key decisions and solution options, and mediating compromises when necessary* A passion for data-driven decision making supported through strong analytic skills, internal due diligence, market analysis, structuring hypotheses, and development of synthesized findings/recommendations #LI-JD1*This job description is not meant to be an all-inclusive list of duties and responsibilities, but constitutes a general definition of the position's scope and function in the company.*