Principal Solution Architect

my7elevenhr; Irving (TX); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

7-Eleven is seeking a Principal Architect to lead technical architecture for POS and store technology platforms in a hands-on role. You will own the architectural vision, drive patterns for APIs, data, and event-driven workflows, and work with cross-functional teams to deliver secure, scalable solutions.

Ideal candidates have 12+ years in software with 8+ years in enterprise architecture, deep experience in distributed systems, microservices, and secure software development, and the ability to

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience with 8+ years in architecture/technical leadership on large enterprise systems.
• Deep expertise in enterprise architecture, distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architecture, and secure software development.
• Hands-on programming capability to read, write, and review production POS/store-related code.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical vision, target architecture, and architecture roadmap for POS applications and store technology platforms.
• Remain hands-on by writing production-quality code and prototyping solutions.
• Translate business/store requirements into design specifications and delivery plans.
• Define architecture patterns for POS services, APIs, data access, messaging, and store-to-cloud communication.
• Lead reviews, set engineering standards, and guide teams to improve quality and maintainability.
• Design high-volume, low-latency, highly available architectures with strong security and resilience.
• Evaluate technologies and drive modernization toward cloud-native services.
• Partner with security and enterprise architecture to embed governance and secure practices.
• Drive CI/CD, IaC, containerized deployments, testing, and release engineering.

Skills

Enterprise architecture

Distributed systems

Microservices

Event-driven design

Domain-driven design

Secure software development

Hands-on coding

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree preferred

Job description

7‑Eleven is an iconic family of brands with over 86,000 locations, surpassing every retailer in the world. We revolutionize convenience, restaurants and fuel through cutting edge innovation - working hard to be the customer's first choice. 7‑Eleven empowers our employees to \"activate awesome\" and make a meaningful impact in their stores and communities every day. If you're ready to grow, lead and make a difference, come join our team and help shape the future of convenience.

7‑Eleven's Store Technology organization is seeking an experienced Principal Architect to lead the technical architecture for point-of-sale and related store technology platforms.

This fully hands‑on role supports the POS team through solution design, coding, prototyping, code reviews, troubleshooting, and production issue resolution. The architect partners with Product, Store Operations, Enterprise Architecture, Cyber Security, Infrastructure, and business stakeholders to deliver secure, scalable, reliable, and maintainable software.

The ideal candidate brings deep POS or transaction‑processing expertise, strong distributed‑systems and cloud‑native experience, and the ability to connect enterprise architecture with implementation details.

KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES :

• Own the technical vision, target architecture, and architecture roadmap for POS applications, services, integrations, APIs, data, and supporting store technology platforms.
• Remain hands‑on by writing production‑quality code, building prototypes and proofs of concept, troubleshooting complex defects, and contributing to critical implementation work with engineering teams.
• Translate business, product, and store requirements into pragmatic solution designs, technical specifications, architecture decision records, and executable delivery plans.
• Define and evolve architecture patterns for POS application services, REST APIs, integrations, data access, messaging, event‑driven workflows, offline capabilities, and store‑to‑cloud communication.
• Lead architecture, design, code, and technical deep‑dive reviews; set engineering standards; and provide clear, actionable guidance that improves software quality and maintainability.
• Design transaction‑oriented systems for high volume, low latency, strong availability, resiliency, security, and graceful operation during connectivity or downstream service interruptions; define the non‑functional requirements needed to support them.
• Evaluate technologies, frameworks, platforms, and vendor solutions through hands‑on experimentation, benchmarks, technical assessments, and total‑cost‑of‑ownership analysis.
• Guide modernization of legacy POS and store systems toward maintainable cloud‑native services while managing technical risk, compatibility, migration sequencing, and business disruption.
• Partner with Cyber Security and Enterprise Architecture to embed security controls, privacy, compliance, governance, threat modeling, and secure software development practices into solutions.
• Drive CI/CD automation, Infrastructure as Code, containerized deployments, automated testing, release engineering, and disciplined environment management.
• Work with engineering and operations teams to diagnose incidents, lead root‑cause analysis, and improve monitoring, alerting, observability dashboards, and actionable metrics.
• Define practical quality engineering strategies across unit, integration, contract, functional, performance, resilience, and regression testing for POS and retail systems.
• Mentor engineers and technical leads through design collaboration, pairing, reviews, and knowledge sharing; create concise architecture documentation, API contracts, runbooks, release plans, and sustainable handoffs.
• Communicate architecture options, trade‑offs, risks, dependencies, estimates, and recommendations to engineering teams, stakeholders, and senior leadership.
• Establish and champion a KPI‑driven engineering culture, using data, operational metrics, customer impact, and business outcomes to guide architecture, prioritization, investment decisions, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Provide technical leadership during major production incidents, driving rapid mitigation, root‑cause analysis, and resilient architectural improvements that eliminate repeat failure patterns and minimize future business impact.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

EDUCATION: Bachelors/4 Year Degree. Master's Degree highly Preferred.

YEARS OF RELEVANT WORK EXPERIENCE: 12+ years

SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS :

• 12+ years of software engineering experience, including 8+ years of hands‑on architecture or technical leadership on enterprise‑scale systems.
• Deep expertise in enterprise architecture, distributed systems, microservices, event‑driven architecture, domain‑driven design, integration patterns, and secure software development.
• Hands‑on programming and software design skills, including the ability to read, write, debug, and review production code for POS systems.
• Experience designing tra