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About Simplicity
For over 200 years, Simplicity Patterns Inc has inspired designers and makers to bring their visions to life. Now, we’re entering an exciting new era, and we’re honoring the Simplicity legacy while reimagining what’s possible for the next generation of creators.
Recently spun off from a larger holding group, Simplicity Patterns Inc is now independently owned by its leadership team – the same entrepreneurs who transformed Backstage from a legacy print publication into a profitable digital marketplace. Our brands include familiar and emerging names in the pattern making space, including Simplicity, McCall’s, Butterick, Vogue Patterns, Know Me, New Look, and Burda Style. Together, we’re investing in every aspect of the business: modernizing our technology, improving the infrastructure, and building a flat culture where good ideas win, initiative is rewarded, and talented people can make a real impact.
The Opportunity:
Simplicity is seeking a Fractional Head of Business Tech & Systems Architecture to map our business processes and design the technical architecture that powers our operations. Our business is complex, with10,000+ SKUs and physical product and data moving through ecommerce, wholesale, and retail channels and across manufacturing, inventory, fulfillment, and accounting platforms.
In this role, you’ll assess our systems and evaluate whether to retain, repair, or replace existing integrations and custom middleware. You’ll trace the flow of products and data across our business, identify where our current processes and technology aren’t meeting expectations, and design solutions that improve inventory accuracy and financial reconciliation. As our technical leader, you’ll also oversee implementation projects, partnering with internal stakeholders and external development partners to ensure solutions are reliable, maintainable, and appropriate to Simplicity’s scale, budget, and internal resources.
This fractional position is an opportunity to work directly with our business owners to set the roadmap, technical direction, and standards for the infrastructure that supports our next chapter.
How You’ll Make an Impact:
- Serve as our technical lead; troubleshoot complex issues, challenge proposed solutions, provide technical direction to developers, and oversee code reviews
- Map our existing technology environment and the movement of physical product and data across ecommerce, retail, wholesale (including EDI), manufacturing, 3PL fulfillment, inventory, and accounting
- Evaluate existing integrations and decide when retaining, repairing, or replacing them is the most pragmatic and efficient solution, including tradeoffs between custom middleware and platforms like Celigo or Boomi
- Design a target architecture and phased implementation roadmap that aligns with our business needs, budget, and internal resources
- Select and oversee implementation agencies and development partners; define project scope, deliverables, and budgets while setting clear expectations for documentation, knowledge transfer, and ongoing system support
- Establish testing and acceptance criteria with business stakeholders to validate inventory, COGS, financial postings, and reconciliation across systems
- Build and maintain our technical knowledge base; establish the quality standard by ensuring our architecture, integrations, code, data flows, and vendors are clearly documented
- Communicate progress, risks, and tradeoffs clearly to internal stakeholders and represent Simplicity to partners and vendors, maintaining momentum and accountability within a defined fractional capacity
Who You Are:
- Senior consultant with substantial experience as a business systems architect, ERP/integration consultant, or technology leader, with a track record of solving comparable problems in physical product businesses
- You’ve designed technical architecture for small companies, creating practical solutions that incorporate existing systems, new platforms, and nonstandard integrations that meet business needs, cost, maintainability, and available support
- Experience with complex physical product workflows, including outsourced manufacturing, standardized 3PL fulfillment, high-SKU inventory, and consignment arrangements
- Strong understanding of inventory valuation, COGS, transaction timing, financial postings, and reconciliation; ability to translate business and accounting requirements into reliable technical solutions
- Technical, with fluency in APIs, data models, integration code, and cloud infrastructure. You’re comfortable evaluating architecture, diagnosing issues, and reviewing the work of development and implementation partners
- Excellent communicator who can explain technical tradeoffs, establish clear standards, and drive accountability across a distributed team
- Organized and methodical, you support thorough documentation and hold others to the same standard
- Adaptable, pragmatic, and humble, with a day-one mindset; comfortable working in a fractional capacity, learning how the business operates before making recommendations, prioritizing effectively, navigating imperfect systems, and taking ownership from discovery through implementation
- Experience with Shopify and/or BigCommerce, Cin7 (or analogous inventory management platform), and QuickBooks Online preferred
- An existing relationship with a trusted integration agency is a plus!
This is a fractional opportunity, and we are flexible with arrangement whether hourly, project-based, or on-going. We are open to remote qualified candidates based in the USA.
Compensation
$ 1 – $ 300 per hour
