Job Description

Career Area:

Technology, Digital and Data

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other. We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

Principal Digital Architect – eCommerce

The Principal Digital Architect – eCommerce plays a critical role in defining functional designs and end‑to‑end eCommerce platform architectures across Cat Digital’s commerce ecosystem. This role is accountable for producing high‑quality architecture and technical design artifacts, solving complex business problems, designing scalable, resilient digital platforms, and leading the evaluation and adoption of new technologies that improve eCommerce outcomes.

This position operates at a platform and enterprise scope as an individual contributor, partnering closely with Product, Engineering, Enterprise Architecture, Security, Data, and Operations. The role ensures architecture and technology decisions are scalable, secure, operable, and aligned to enterprise standards, providing leadership through architectural credibility, technical depth, and influence, not through direct people management.

Key Responsibilities

eCommerce Platform Architecture Leadership

• Define and evolve target and reference architectures for Cat Digital’s eCommerce platforms, including modular capability decomposition across:

  • Catalog, pricing, and promotions

  • Cart, checkout, and payments

  • Order orchestration and fulfillment

  • Content, search, and experience delivery

  • Platform and enterprise integrations

• Create cohesive application and platform architectures that align business outcomes with architectural patterns and enterprise standards.

• Provide architecture solutions grounded in business and technical requirements, aligned with platform architecture processes and governance.

Build vs Buy, POTs & Technology Assessments (Primary Accountability)

• Lead build vs. buy evaluations for eCommerce and adjacent platform capabilities, including commerce engines, CMS, PIM, search, personalization, and integration platforms.

• Define and execute Proofs of Technology (POTs) and technical assessments to validate:

  • Functional fit, extensibility, and customization boundaries

  • Integration feasibility and architectural patterns

  • Performance, scalability, and resiliency

  • Security posture and identity alignment

  • Operational readiness (monitoring, logging, alerting, support models)

  • Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and long‑term sustainability

• Lead the evaluation and adoption of new technologies to enhance eCommerce technical capabilities.

• Produce architecture decision artifacts (trade‑off analyses, RFCs, ADRs) to enable transparent, auditable decisions.

Architecture Governance & Functional Design

• Translate business and product requirements into well‑defined architectural designs with clear service boundaries, ownership models, and APIs.

• Participate in and reinforce architecture and design reviews, ensuring compliance with enterprise principles, standards, and policies.

• Guide teams in adopting open, composable, and API‑first eCommerce architectures aligned with enterprise strategy.

Hands‑On Technical Architecture

• Design and influence cloud‑native, distributed architectures for enterprise eCommerce platforms (AWS preferred).

• Define and guide API and integration strategies, including RESTful and event‑driven patterns.

• Ensure non‑functional requirements are embedded by design:

  • Reliability, scalability, and fault tolerance

  • Security‑by‑design and identity integration

  • Observability (monitoring, logging, tracing)

  • Incident readiness and operational excellence

Delivery Augmentation & Execution Support (IC Model)

• Actively augment delivery teams by:

  • Unblocking architecture and platform decisions

  • Validating implementation alignment with target architectures

  • Reducing downstream rework through early architectural clarity

• Provide hands‑on guidance through architectural spikes, reference implementations, and reusable “golden path” patterns that accelerate delivery.

Critical Skills & Knowledge

Architecture & Functional Skills

• Requirements analysis and decomposition into scalable, enterprise‑ready architectures

• Trade‑off analysis (build vs. buy, cost vs. scale, reuse vs. customization)

• Architecture governance, standards alignment, and decision documentation

• Strong consulting and influence skills across cross‑functional stakeholders

Technical Skills

• Enterprise platform architecture and distributed systems design

• Cloud‑native architecture (AWS preferred)

• API‑first and event‑driven integration patterns

• Security‑by‑design, reliability engineering, and operational readiness

Domain Expertise (Preferred)

• eCommerce / Digital Commerce platforms (B2B and/or B2C)

• Modular and composable commerce capabilities

• CMS, PIM (e.g., Akeneo or equivalent), and search platforms

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

• Typically 15+ years of experience in software engineering and digital/platform architecture, including enterprise‑scale platform decisions and technology evaluations

Principal Digital Architect – eCommerce

• Consults on planning, integrating, and migrating enterprise eCommerce platforms

• Designs and governs cohesive, scalable application and platform architectures

• Guides architects and engineering teams on standards, architectural best practices, and long‑term roadmaps

• Leads technology evaluation and adoption to improve platform scalability, security, operability, and business outcomes

This position requires working onsite five days a week.Relocation is available for this position.

Posting Dates:

April 2, 2026 - April 9, 2026

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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