Position: IT Solutions Architect – AI & AutomationReports To: Director of ITDepartment: Information TechnologyFLSA Status: Exempt
Position Purpose:
The IT Solutions Architect – AI & Automation is the primary technical authority for the application portfolio that supports our food manufacturing operations. That portfolio covers enterprise integrations, custom software, automation, and AI-enabled systems. The role evaluates business processes and technologies, prioritizes opportunities by value, feasibility, and risk, and sets development standards across the full software development lifecycle. The Architect hands-on designs, builds, and supports solutions using the right mix of AI tools, APIs, custom code, and automation platforms, including UiPath, and integrates business applications and data, including our Sage X3 ERP system.
The Architect ensures that all development, deployment, and maintenance of code and software follows industry best practices and SCF IT security practices. The Architect owns each initiative from requirements through deployment, training, and ongoing production support, and keeps solutions reliable, secure, and compliant with food safety, quality, and regulatory requirements. AI-enabled workflows carry appropriate data protections and human oversight. The role works with Finance, Operations, HR, Sales, Maintenance, and IT, and reports measurable results such as time saved, error reduction, and reliability. On an ongoing basis, it establishes the standards and technical foundation that a growing team of specialists will build on.
Key Specific Responsibilities:
Automation and Systems Integration
Define and maintain the architecture for the organization's custom applications, integrations, automation workflows, and AI-enabled systems.
Work with business teams to identify manual processes, define requirements, and prioritize opportunities based on value, feasibility, and risk.
Evaluate tools, platforms, and approaches - including AI services, RPA platforms, APIs, and cloud services and make recommendations that balance capability, cost, and long-term maintainability.
Design, build, test, and deploy automations and integrations using the appropriate combination of APIs, custom code, AI tools, and RPA platforms such as UiPath
Develop and maintain integrations between Sage X3, other business applications, databases, and external services, using C#/.NET and REST or SOAP APIs.
Establish development standards, coding practices, and documentation requirements for solutions built within IT.
Ensure solution designs align with business goals, security requirements, and operational sustainability.
Support CI/CD pipeline processes for deployed applications, including deployments, versioning, and environment configurations.
Design and support custom applications (e.g., web, desktop, or console tools) as needed to complement automation and integration work.
Build and support automation workflows using the appropriate combination of APIs, custom code, AI tools, and RPA platforms such as UiPath — including attended and unattended automations, and Orchestrator scheduling, queues, and monitoring.
Design, build, and maintain custom applications across the organization's portfolio, including web applications (Blazor), desktop applications, console tools, and shared class libraries targeting current .NET versions.
Monitor production systems, investigate failures, and maintain logging, exception handling, and support documentation.
AI, Reporting & Continuous Improvement
Build and maintain data connections and reports, including Power BI dashboards, that help teams make decisions and measure the results of automation and technology projects.
Work with business and IT teams to improve data quality, system connectivity, and the effective use of Sage X3 and other platforms.
Identify and evaluate opportunities to incorporate AI tools and services into business workflows - including document processing, classification, summarization,…