DescriptionThe Senior Lead Capability Design Architect is a senior technical leader and domain architecture lead responsible for defining, governing, and executing the technical blueprints for a designated business capability L2 domain and sub-domains. Operating as a Senior Individual Contributor and technical domain lead, this role bridges long-term capability vision with high-quality technical execution.
Embedded within ELC's Product Operating Model, the Senior Lead CDA works alongside Product Managers, Process Technology Leads, and business stakeholders to turn functional requirements into modular, scalable technical designs. The role strictly enforces Fit to Standard and Clean Core principles, ensuring core transaction systems remain unpolluted while driving side-by-side cloud extensions via standard APIs. The Senior Lead CDA manages technical division-of-labor boundaries with Enterprise Business Services (EBS) partners, auditing vendor technical deliverables to safeguard internal IP. Additionally, this leader drives GenAI adoption across daily architectural workflows, actively presents and leads design reviews in peer design, strategy and architecture reviews, and serves as a formal technical mentor to lower-grade architects and other team members on the Enterprise Product Design Engineering team. Coaching through design reviews, architecture standards and technical best practices.
Key Roles & ResponsibilitiesCapability Strategy & Modular Blueprinting (35%)
- Define, maintain, and execute the 3-year technical capability vision and architectural roadmap for the assigned business capability L2 domain and the associated sub-domains. Translate business capability objectives into modular technical blueprints that guide product squad execution.
- Partner with Domain Directors, Product Managers, and Process Technology Leads (PTLs) to align technical designs with business roadmaps, maintaining a clear separation between business needs and technical realization.
- Track and model Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) across domain platforms. Identify redundant applications, outdated interfaces, and latent technical debt, authoring architectural business cases for platform modernization.
- Lead domain-level Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercises to identify data latency, process bottlenecks, and integration friction, designing high-speed, automated technical integrations to optimize operational flow.
Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)Domain Architecture Ownership & Fit to Standard Governance (30%)
- Maintain and govern the accurate inventory of all technology products, custom components, and active integrations within the domain capability boundary, ensuring complete software lifecycle tracking.
- Serve as the primary technical authority for the domain, translating complex functional workflows into detailed architectural patterns, data schemas, and platform configuration parameters.
- Guard the standard to FIT ERP engine against custom configurations by requiring all unique business logic to be built via side-by-side cloud extensions and clean APIs.
- Monitor vendor software roadmaps, cloud technology advancements, and industry best practices within the domain, recommending timely technical upgrades to keep ELC's platforms competitive.
- Ensure 100% of critical domain L3 process maps, system interfaces, and configuration rules are continuously updated in living shared documentation tools (Confluence, Signavio). Ensure documentation is reusable and maintained.
Key Roles & Responsibilities (Continued)Product Alignment & Design Lifecycle Governance (20%)
- Partner with Product Managers and engineering squads to ensure daily user stories, sprint backlogs, and feature implementations conform to long-term capability blueprints and architecture standards.
- Formally audit technical solution designs and estimates provided by EBS partners and external system integrators, preventing scope creep and ensuring adherence to ELC architectural standards.
- Present capability domain architectural designs at Architecture Review Boards, obtaining formal design approvals and resolving cross-domain integration dependencies.
- Implement platform telemetry metrics to monitor post-deployment system performance, interface reliability, and quality metrics, ensuring solutions deliver intended business value.
AI-Augmented Architecture & Team Mentorship (15%)
- Identify and implement practical Generative AI and automation use cases within the domain, embedding intelligent capabilities into business workflows and technical architecture.
- Leverage ChatGPT Enterprise and AI tools to streamline the drafting of technical specifications, data dictionaries, and API contracts, reducing manual documentation effort.
- Serve as a formal mentor to other architects and product managers. Provide continuous technical coaching, review design artifacts, and support career progression.
- Actively present complex domain capability designs in peer design, strategy and architecture review forums. Adopt assigned personas to pressure-test peer architectures and drive collaborative design improvements.
Qualifications- Advanced capability to model end-to-end domain technical architectures using TOGAF or SAP EA frameworks, defining robust data flows and interface specifications across complex corporate capabilities.
- Deep technical proficiency in designing side-by-side extensions (SAP BTP, cloud microservices), defining REST/GraphQL API contracts, and decoupling legacy middleware implementations.
- Skilled in using ChatGPT Enterprise and AI development tools to accelerate technical specification drafting, analyze legacy configuration dependencies, and maintain living repositories.
- Proven ability to review, audit, and benchmark system integrator technical designs, SOW proposals, and code artifacts,
- Proficiency in applying Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and APQC modeling to optimize business process workflows and translate operational needs into modern technical architecture.
- Deep SAP ECC Finance expertise within a single global SAP instance across , Intercompany, Treasury and Cash Management, Bank Electronic Bank Statement Processing, and Financial Close.
- Define and maintain enterprise capability architecture to enable end-to-end process integration across P2P, O2C, and B2R, ensuring standardized capabilities, cross-functional process alignment
- Lead workshops to gather business requirements and conduct Fit/Gap analysis for global and regional deployments.
Qualifications (Continued)- Support global SAP implementations, enhancement releases, and business transformation initiatives.
- Partner with regional and global stakeholders to standardize processes while addressing local business requirements.
- Support testing activities, provide architectural oversight for Application Management Services (AMS), enhancements, break-fix activities, and production support, collaborate with development teams to define and review functional specifications, custom enhancements, interfaces, and integrations
- Work closely with ABAP developers throughout design, build, testing, and deployment cycles.
- Ensure adherence to Solution Architecture and Center of Excellence (CoE) standards and methodologies.
- Preferred Experience with S4 HANA Financial architecture and capabilities and understanding of Universal journal, Business Partner Integration, Central Finance, Fiori applications and Group Reporting
- Minimum Education Level: Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
- Minimum Years of Experience: 7+
Pay Range:The anticipated base salary range for this position is
$119,300.00 to
$196,600.00. Exact salary depends on several factors such as experience, skills, education, and budget. Salary range may vary based on geographic location. In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program as well as participation in the share incentive plan. In addition,
In addition to base salary, this position is eligible for participation in a highly competitive bonus program with the possibility for overachievement based on performance and company results. In addition, The Estée Lauder Companies offers a variety of benefits to eligible employees, including health insurance coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance), wellness and family support programs, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, paid leave programs, education-related programs, paid holidays and vacation time, and many others. Many of these benefits are subsidized or fully paid for by the company.
