Solution Architect - Data Science and Analytics at Costco in Issaquah, WA

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the third largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in fourteen countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed.

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture. The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes. Our employees and our members come FIRST. Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.

Come join the Costco Wholesale IT family. Costco IT is a dynamic, fast-paced environment, working through exciting transformation efforts. We are building the next generation retail environment where you will be surrounded by dedicated and highly professional employees.

Solution Architects create IT architecture & design solutions based on business requirements, industry trends, and technology options. Solution Architects are responsible and accountable for the solution architecture in partnership with Enterprise Architects, Domain Architects, and Engineering teams. Solution Architects partner with the delivery team for solution planning, delivery, detailed design, and implemented solutions. Solution Architects ensure the implemented solutions are consistent with the approved architecture. Solution Architects communicate, mentor, and lead teams based on program or project needs for solution delivery.

We are looking for an experienced Data Science Solution Architect who is passionate about creating scalable, impactful Data Science and Analytics solutions that solve complex business challenges across diverse functions. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record in designing and delivering enterprise-grade Data Science architectures, with deep expertise in DataOps, MLOps, and DevOps practices. This role requires collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders, focusing on building robust, secure, and user-centered solutions that meet the evolving needs of our business.

If you want to be a part of one of the worldwide BEST companies “to work for”, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

● Analyzes the Business-IT environment (run, grow, and transform the business) to detect critical deficiencies, and recommend solutions for improvement (systems of record, differentiation, and innovation).

● Identifies aging technology issues, or misalignment with business requirements, and proposes solutions.

● Partners with Enterprise Architects for domain roadmaps and reference architecture.

● Executes projects and initiatives on the domain roadmap in partnership with Enterprise Architects.

● Consults with application and infrastructure development projects, and identifies when it is necessary to modify projects to accommodate the solution architecture.

● Ensures cohesiveness of solution designs across various projects/solutions.

● Collaborates with Enterprise Architects to balance needs between Solution Architectural Guardrails.

● Designs, develops, and directs solution architectures, design exceptions, and governance activities in compliance with target states, reference architectures, architecture standards, technology guardrails, and security and operational guidelines.

● Identifies the organizational impact (skills, processes, structures, or culture) and financial impact of the solutions architecture.

● Creates non-functional specs for operational agility, disaster recovery, and support.

● Establishes solution delivery flow for continuous integration, testing and delivery, and operational deployment in partnership with project managers, solution leads, and other stakeholders.

● Conducts design reviews to validate alignment with architecture.

● Modifies solution architecture to support changing business or technology requirements.

● Documents solutions architecture design and analysis work, and communicates architectural decisions that impact solution.

● Defines the principles, guidelines, standards, and solution patterns to ensure decisions are aligned with the enterprise's future-state architecture vision.

● Communicates infrastructure, software, information, and/or solution concepts to all levels of management.

● Designs methodology that consistently yields the right level of technical design documentation and develops technical solutions that conform both to customer requirements and information development standards.

● Adheres to Costco’s Architectural Framework and Governance model.

Solution Planning

● Architectural Strategy: Collaborates with Enterprise Architecture and key stakeholders to develop strategies and standards for Data Science and Analytics, ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives.

● Stakeholder Alignment: Engages with data scientists, business leaders, and Engineering teams to translate business requirements into comprehensive, scalable Data Science architectures, emphasizing collaboration and alignment with business goals.

● Operational Requirements and Security: Integrates DataOps and MLOps best practices into architectural designs, focusing on secure, compliant data handling, model deployment, and robust monitoring for all data science solutions.

● Continuous Improvement and Innovation: Assesses and refines architectural practices by adopting industry best practices and exploring new technologies to ensure efficiency and future-readiness.

Solution Design and Governance

● End-to-End Data Science Architecture: Designs solutions that integrate foundational elements like DataOps, MLOps, and DevOps to support reliable data ingestion, preprocessing, model deployment, and monitoring.

● Scalability and Future-Readiness: Architects solutions that can scale with future demands, including support for large language models (LLMs), generative AI, and other emerging data science technologies.

● AI/ML Lifecycle Management: Establishes and oversees the lifecycle management of AI/ML models, including tracking, retraining, governance, and ethical considerations, to ensure transparency, accountability, and fairness in deployed models.

● Compliance and Security: Designs solutions with embedded governance and security, meeting regulatory and compliance requirements for data privacy, access control, and audit logging.

Solution Delivery and Quality Assurance

● User-Centric Data Product Design: Focuses on developing data products that prioritize accessibility, user experience, and self-service capabilities, enabling business users to independently derive insights.

● DataOps, MLOps, and DevOps Integration: Oversees the deployment of Data Science solutions, ensuring robust CI/CD workflows and effective integration of DataOps and MLOps for efficient model training, retraining, and monitoring.

● Operational Excellence: Implements monitoring, drift detection, and automated retraining to maintain model accuracy and relevance over time, following best practices in MLOps.

● Technical Quality and Compliance: Ensures solutions meet quality standards, including; testability, performance, and compliance with industry regulations like PCI, HIPAA, and SOX.

REQUIRED

● 10+ years’ professional experience in solutioning, designing, developing, and delivering Data Science and Analytics solutions for enterprise environments.

● Technical expertise in large-scale data warehousing, data lakes, distributed processing, and advanced analytics, including experience with cloud platforms such as Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

● Proficiency in DataOps and MLOps: Proven experience in implementing automated data pipelines, model monitoring, and CI/CD for data science and analytics.

● Advanced knowledge of cloud platforms (e.g., Azure Synapse, Power BI, Google BigQuery, Databricks, Tableau) and modern analytics architectures, with strong data manipulation and analysis skills.

● Exceptional communication and leadership skills, able to present complex ideas and drive consensus among stakeholders at all levels.

● Knowledge of IT architecture and various SDLC methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, SCRUM) and experience adapting architectures in a dynamic environment.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off, health benefits - medical/dental/vision/hearing aid/pharmacy/behavioral health/employee assistance, health care reimbursement account, dependent care assistance plan, short-term disability and long-term disability insurance, AD&D insurance, life insurance, 401(k), stock purchase plan to eligible employees.

Costco is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Costco is an equal opportunity employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or any other legally protected status. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request to IT-Recruiting@costco.com

If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States.

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