Systems Integration Specialist Jobs in Illinois

About This Role

The Manager of Enterprise Systems Integration is responsible for owning the enterprise integration strategy, platforms, and architectural standards that enable secure, resilient, and scalable data and application connectivity across the organization ensuring the operational resiliency and stability of the organization’s enterprise integration platform. This role manages a dedicated engineering team, supplemented by a variable pool of staff augmentation consultants, focused on the hands-on development and support of data flows across Informatica, IBM, and Azure suites.

The primary accountability is maintaining the availability and reliability of all enterprise-wide integration and data movement systems that underpin the retail supply chain, digital platforms, and Saas ecosystems. This role also leads the strategic evolution of integration patterns from legacy batch-oriented implementations to API-led and event-driven architectures, enabling real-time business capabilities, analytics, and AI/ML use cases. The scope includes platform health, architectural integrity, and operational resiliency.

• Directly manage and lead a dedicated engineering team plus a variable pool of staff augmentation consultants, overseeing resource allocation, skills development, and large-scale delivery.
• Maintain accountability for the performance, availability, and operational resiliency of all enterprise-wide data movement and integration points, including 24/7 production coverage.
• Manage the engineering standards, platform usage models, and implementation approaches for engineering of data flows using Informatica Power Center, IBM Sterling/Broker, IBM APIC, and Azure APIM/ADF.
• Ensure all solution architectures for data movement align with approved enterprise standards and “enterprise architecture standards”.
• Lead the progressive migration of data integration patterns from scheduled batch movement to integration, including API-led connectivity, modern, event-driven architectures, and real-time data streaming, while ensuring controlled migration from legacy batch-based patterns with no disruption to business operations.
• Provide hands-on mentorship and lead by example to develop the technical competencies of the integration engineering staff.
• Own enterprise API lifecycle management, including design standards, versioning, reuse, deprecation, and external partner exposure, ensuring integrations are secure, discoverable, and reusable across the enterprise.

Who You Are

You are a strategic technology leader who thrives in complex integration environments and values operational excellence. You bring strong technical depth and enjoy leading teams while advancing modern data and integration capabilities.

Required Skills

Engineering Leadership:

• 10+ years of experience in systems integration engineering, with 3+ years in a formal people leadership role managing teams of 10+ FTE developers, including experience managing on/offshore staff augmentation consultants.

Technical Stack Proficiency:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience with enterprise integration and data platform tooling, including Informatica (PowerCenter, DEI), IBM middleware (Sterling, Message Broker, APIC), Azure integration services (ADF, APIM), Hadoop, Databricks. Experience with Informatica, Hadoop and Databricks is required.

Modernization Expertise:

• 5+ years leading modernization initiatives transitioning enterprise environments from batch-processing to Event-Driven Architecture (EDA), with demonstrated emphasis on operational continuity during migration.

Operational Management:

• 5+ years managing production integration systems at high volume, with a strong understanding of supply chain data requirements in a retail context; proficiency with enterprise ITSM tooling, for incident and change management.

Applied AI:

• Practical understanding of AI/ML as it applies to integration engineering - including AIOps tooling for intelligent monitoring and anomaly detection, integration patterns that support AI/ML data pipelines, and the governed use of AI-assisted development tools (including GitHub Copilot) within an engineering team.

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or IS; excellent communication skills to facilitate technical alignment across IT.

Compensation Details:

$158400 - $205950 per year

Why should you join our team?

We live our values - W.E.L.I.G.H.T (Winning, Excellence, Love, Integrity, Gratitude, Humility, and Teamwork). Gratitude. Humility. Love. You don’t often see values like these in most corporate statements, but Ace is different. These things are important to us. They represent our commitment to the company, our employees, to Ace retailers and to the Ace brand.

In addition to providing our employees a great culture, Ace also offers competitive benefits* that address life’s necessities and perks, many of which expand and improve year after year, including:

• Incentive opportunities, based on role/grade level (company growth over the past 5 years resulted in incentives being paid out at an average of 122% of your target opportunity!)
• Generous 401(k) retirement savings plan with a fully vested matching contribution the first year in addition to quarterly contributions and annual discretionary contribution (once eligibility requirements have been met). Over the past 5 years, company contributions (matching, quarterly & discretionary) for fully eligible employees have averaged 10% of total eligible compensation
• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision and disability – up to 26 weeks short-term disability and long-term disability) & life insurance benefits for you and your dependents
• 21 days of vacation immediately available (prorated in the first year) and up to 6 paid holidays depending on the month of hire
• Company Car, phone and fuel card are provided for field-based positions
• Your career at Ace is more than just a job. It’s a chance to be part of something meaningful. We help locally-owned businesses thrive and make an impact in their communities – and we support our employees in doing the same by offering an annual Ace Cares Week, 20 hours off work per year to volunteer at an organization of your choice, opportunities to help Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and the Ace Helpful Fund through the Ace Foundation
• Ace invests in every employee we hire, with a key focus on development and coaching. We offer on-site classes, facilitator-led courses, and a generous tuition assistance program, plus a performance management approach that goes beyond the typical annual review
• We know the work environment matters. That’s why Ace holds frequent campus events like Employee Appreciation Week, vendor demos, cookouts, and merchandise sales
• We bring them to you! Services such as mobile spas, auto maintenance, car wash and detailing, dry cleaning, dentists, eye doctors, flu shots, recycling and more!
• Employee discounts on Ace merchandise (including top brands like Weber, Traeger, Yeti, Craftsman, DeWalt and more), travel, fitness, computers and thousands more
• Birth/Adoption bonding paid time off
• Adoption cost reimbursement
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) – access to free visits to therapists and lawyers, guidance on financial matters, elder and childcare, and assistance with tickets to entertainment events
• Identity theft protection

Benefits are provided in compliance with applicable policies.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Ace Hardware Corporation is committed to a policy of promoting equal employment opportunities. The company recognizes the importance of diversity and leveraging the skills and talents of all people to the mutual advantage of each individual and the organization. The company is committed to the prevention of employment discrimination related to race, religion, color, sex (including sexual harassment), gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, disability and military or veteran status, sexual orientation or any other action covered by federal or applicable state/local laws.

Disclaimer

The pay range for this position starts as listed in the job posting, but could be higher based on education and experience. Please note, compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each opening. We take into consideration the minimum requirements outlined in the job description, such as an individual’s education, training and experience, the position’s work location, required travel (if any), and external market conditions when determining the final salary for potential new hires.

Be aware that salary estimates published via alternate online job boards may not be a true representation of the actual pay range offered for this position. Please refer to the Ace position description for the accurate starting pay range information and feel free to discuss this with a Talent Acquisition professional if you are chosen to move forward with an interview.

This written “Position Description” is not intended to cover all aspects of the position listed. It is meant to cover the basic/general essential job functions of a particular position. Ace Hardware Corporation reserves the right to change job duties, including essential job functions, according to business necessity.

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.