Our client is looking for a Product Architect Supply Chain
Context of the mission
The primary purpose of the EU Regional IT Architecture team is to translate strategy into solutions. The team defines and contributes to the region’s IT strategy and roadmap, and converts these into high‑level IT architectures, including clear transition paths from the current to the future state.
Architecture governance ensures that the delivery of new and enhanced IT capabilities aligns with the long‑term strategic goals captured in the IT solution roadmap and complies with established architecture standards and policies.
At the project level, the architecture team brings stakeholders together, ensures a shared understanding of business requirements and solution options, and designs both the transition plan and the target end‑state architecture.
The Supply Chain Product Architect plays a key role within the EU Regional IT Architecture team. For our group of omnichannel food retail brands, Supply Chain is a critical capability within the Core Retail landscape. We are seeking a Product/Enterprise Architect who is passionate about Supply Chain.
Mission period
- Start date: 15th of July
- Duration: 6 months
- (Potential extension up to 2 years)
Language requirement
| Languages | Speaking | Reading | Writing | Mandatory | Preferable |
| English | 3 | 3 | 3 | x | |
| Dutch* | 1 | 1 | 1 | x | |
| French* | 1 | 1 | 1 | x |
1 = Basic – 2 = Good – 3 = Fluent
* Dutch or French are optional
Localization
- Hybrid (2 days in week in the office / 3 days remote)
- Either form Belgium, the Netherlands, Roumania or Greece
Level of education required
Bachelor Degree in Computer Sciences or equivalent trough experience
Required Knowledge and Experience
Personal Skills (soft skills)
Mandatory (years: medior 3-5)
- Excellent analytical and conceptual skills and a critical mindset
- Autonomous, proactive, structured, accurate
- Strong teamwork and interpersonal skills. Demonstrated ability to work independently and with others
- Able to handle multiple tasks
- Results oriented and innovator
- Strong interpersonal skills, incl. Teamwork, facilitation, negotiation and diplomacy
- Excellent verbal, and written communications skills, to include writing/editing of technical documentation for international audiences; effective presentation skills
- Knowledgeable in TCO analysis and scenario-based tradeoff evaluation to support strategic decision-making and architectural choices.
- Flexible and motivated to learn new technologies and to stay abreast of innovative solutions
- Ability to translate complex problems and technical concepts into clear, compelling narratives, visuals, and frameworks.
- Skilled in (visual) storytelling to effectively engage diverse audiences; ranging from business and product stakeholders to architectural and technical teams.
Business experience required (work experience)
Mandatory (years: medior 3-5)
- Strong experience in IT architecture with exposure to retail and supply chain environments
- Proven leadership experience guiding teams through complex IT transformations
- You are able to work within an agile context and with waterfall managed projects
Preferable
- Experience in multinational or large-scale retail organisations
Functional experience required (job experience in particular industry and in particular function)
Mandatory (years: medior 3-5 / senior 6+)
- Between 3-7 years of orelevant IT experience
- You deliver high-level architectural designs for the Supply Chain Product Cluster supporting capabilities such as Demand Forecasting/Replenishment, Digital Twin, Warehouse Management, Transport Management, Workforce management.
- You have experience with Product Management and business stakeholders to ensure alignment and secure organization-wide stakeholder support.
- You support Product and Solution architects to translate IT strategy and reference architectures into best-of-breed, flexible, and scalable architecture
- You can lead / contribute to the reference architecture in your own domain.
- You ensure that the TCO implications of architecture decisions are factored into the solution choices.
- You can apply the architectural principles and policies to the security, privacy and compliance regimes
- You are used to provide solutions to business and management problems, and you develop innovative solutions
- You can drive strategic plans towards concrete roadmaps and timely execution
- You have experience with giving support to the program & project delivery teams embed security, privacy and regulatory needs into the solution designs.
- Demonstrated ability to translate business requirements into architectural deliverables
Preferable
- Knowledge of ITIL processes
Technical experience required (job experience in particular industry and in particular function)
Mandatory (medior 3-5 / senior 6+)
- Between 3-7 years of relevant IT experience
- Experience of complex IT landscapes and large organizations
- Proven experience as IT Architect and/or Enterprise Architect
- Proven experience in Classic supply Chain (F&R, WMS/TMS/WFM/Digital Twin) is must
- Experience with modern development methodologies such as micro-service development.
- Experience in building the end-to-end Supply Chain Vision on how supply chain is evolving in the lines of Industry 4.0
- Experience with package implementations on WMS/TMS
- Experience with integration platforms such as MuleSoft
- Experience with REST APIs, event-driven architectures, cloud-native concepts, messaging systems (e.g., Kafka), and enterprise-scale design patterns.
- Expertise in project management, escalation, process management and business systems requirements definition
- Experience with agile development methodologies (Scrum, Devops) or the SAFe framework would be appreciated.
Preferable
- Experience in the Retail industry
- Experience in EA Modelling tools such as BiZZdesign, LeanIX, etc
Objective of the job
Architectural Leadership
- Mentor engineering teams and contribute to developing future IT talent within the organisation.
- Act as a change agent, challenging existing practices and promoting innovation, productivity, and modernization across the supply chain IT landscape.
- Collaborate with Group, Regional architects and local Enterprise Architecture to ensure architectural consistency, integration, and compliance across the wider Ahold Company ecosystem.
- Work closely with Project Managers, IT Domain Leads, and business stakeholders to define the right technology solutions for retail supply chain ambitions.
Architecture Design & Governance
- Design scalable, commercially viable, and sustainable architecture for retail supply chain capabilities.
- Embed security, compliance, and risk awareness into all architectural decisions.
- Manage and document Architectural Decisions (ADR), trade-offs, baselines, target and transition states.
- Participate in design reviews and ensure adherence to enterprise standards.
Innovation & Technology Strategy
- Evaluate new technologies relevant to supply chain (forecasting engines, advanced analytics, autonomous replenishment, route optimization).
- Collaborate with vendors to ensure their roadmaps align with strategic objectives.
- Support RFPs, vendor scoring, and technology assessments for WMS, TMS, replenishment solutions, data platforms, and integration tools.
Financial Awareness
- Ensure architectural decisions respect budget constraints and optimize total cost of ownership (TCO).
- Track the impact of architectural choices on CapEx and OpEx.
- Manage technical debt and incorporate it into long-term platform improvement plans.
Key Deliverables
- Baseline, target, and transition architecture views
- Project Start Architecture / Architectural Decision Record documents
- Trade-off & options analysis
- Non-functional requirements (performance, availability, scalability, resiliency, security)
- Solution blueprints and integration patterns
