Solutions Principal-Solutions Delivery

YOUR OPPORTUNITY

We have an exciting opportunity for a Solutions Principal at our Merriam, KS office. The Solutions Principal is a very senior individual contributor who carries the full breadth of Solutions Delivery work — such as leading support and application environment operations, delivering technology solutions for the business, performing analysis and requirements gathering, running light to medium project management, and directing upgrades and enhancements to custom and purchased applications. This role has no direct HR employee reports; it leads through the work and services rather than through an org chart.

The role is deliberately collapsed. Depending on the need, the Solutions Principal steps into project management, requirements gathering, hands-on build, or application support — and uses AI to move faster across all of it. Roughly 80 to 90% of the time is hands-on doer, builder, and application-support work. The remaining 10 to 20% is orchestration: providing direction and coordinating work for less senior resources. As a very senior role, expectations are high — the Solutions Principal owns the hardest, highest-leverage problems and sets the standard others follow.

 

ABOUT US

At Seaboard Foods, we create the most sought-after pork. As one of the nation’s leading pork producers and exporters, we are committed to producing high-quality food responsibly while connecting every step from our farms to family tables. More than 5,400 employees across five states support our farms, feed mills, and processing operations, helping deliver Prairie Fresh® pork to customers in more than 30 countries worldwide. At Seaboard Foods, we value teamwork, integrity, safety, and continuous improvement. As a Fortune 500 employer and recent Business Journal “Best Places to Work” nominee, we are proud to foster a culture where employees can grow, contribute, and make a meaningful impact.

 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This list is not intended to be all-inclusive, and other duties may be assigned.

The work breaks down into two buckets:

Doer, Builder, and Application Support (80 to 90% of time)

Lead support and application environment operations

• Lead support and environment operations across a portfolio of custom-built and purchased/packaged applications — triage, incident resolution, root-cause analysis, and the ongoing health of production environments — keeping business-critical systems reliable and available.

• Own the operational readiness of releases — monitoring, runbooks, deployment approach, and escalation paths — and partner with support resources so systems stay stable after go-live.

 

 

Lead technology solutions for our business

• Lead the design, build, test, and rollout of technology solutions for our business, delivering the most complex and highest-leverage parts of the work.

• Embed with business teams to build deep domain knowledge, iterate in tight feedback loops, and ship working solutions that drives measurable outcomes; use AI-Assisted Development as appropriate to deliver.

• Carry hard and sometimes ambiguous work end to end (integrations, data problems, application defects, solution patterns), demonstrating that a senior generalist backed by AI can deliver at production quality.

Perform analysis and requirements gathering, with AI

• Perform business analysis and requirements gathering — facilitating working sessions, documenting functional and technical requirements, and translating business needs into actionable designs — using AI to accelerate elicitation, synthesis, and documentation.

Perform light to medium project management, with AI

• Run project management for the work you own/lead — milestones, dependencies, cutovers, status, and risk/issue tracking — using AI to draft plans, track progress, and keep stakeholders informed, without the overhead of a dedicated project manager.

Direct and oversee upgrades and enhancements to custom and packaged applications

• Provide direction for and oversee upgrades and enhancements to custom-built and purchased/packaged applications — scoping the work, coordinating internal resources and vendors, validating changes, and ensuring upgrades land with minimal disruption to the business.

• Manage and coordinate vendor and managed-service delivery where applications are supported through those models, ensuring contractual and operational commitments are met.

• Stay current on emerging AI tools and modern delivery practices and pull proven patterns into the work as quickly as they earn their place.

Orchestration and Direction (10 to 20% of time)

• Provide orchestration and direction for less senior resources — assigning and sequencing tasks/work, clarifying priorities, reviewing output, and unblocking our teams so delivery keeps moving. This is technical and delivery focused; the role carries no direct employee HR reporting structure.

• Run the lightweight delivery cadence for the initiatives you lead — standups, working sessions, and lightweight planning (milestones, dependencies, cutovers) that keeps work moving and dependencies visible.

• Coordinate across business areas and IT teams (Architecture, Platform Engineering, Data Platform, Application Support, and external vendors) to surface and resolve blockers before they slow delivery.

• Clarify priority when the queue is ambiguous — pull the right people into the room, force the trade-off conversation, and confirm direction with leadership so the team can keep building.

• Raise the bar through pairing, design and code review, and quick coaching moments embedded in the work.

 

 

CORE COMPETENCIES FOR SUCCESS IN ALL ROLES

Instills trust, communicates effectively, is action-oriented, ensures accountability, and drives results.

 

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required or preferred. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Required:

· 8+ years of IT solutions delivery experience spanning the full lifecycle — analysis, build, test, and support — with several years in a senior or lead capacity.

· Track record delivering production software and application changes, including within the past 12 months.

· Hands-on proficiency using AI to accelerate delivery — AI-Assisted Development, AI-assisted analysis and requirements gathering, and AI-assisted project management, with comfort choosing the right tool for the problem.

· Demonstrated breadth across the collapsed skill set — requirements gathering, light to medium project management, hands-on build, and application support — with the ability to move fluidly among them based on the need.

· Experience leading support and application environment operations for custom and/or packaged applications, including incident resolution, root-cause analysis, and operational readiness.

· Experience directing or overseeing upgrades and enhancements on custom-built and purchased/packaged applications.

· Experience coordinating on-shore/off-shore, vendor, or managed-service delivery models to support IT and business needs.

· Experience in one or more software development lifecycle methodologies: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, etc.

· Ability to provide technical and delivery direction to less senior resources without formal management authority.

· Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills (alignment, trade-offs, prioritization), with comfort engaging at the leadership level both verbally and in writing.

· Demonstrated ability to operate in ambiguity and drive outcomes with incomplete information, rapidly iterating toward the right solution.

· Excellent communication, collaboration, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to adapt the level of detail to the audience.

Preferred:

· Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or a related field.

· Experience with modern application stacks and enterprise platforms and reporting, analytics, or integration tooling.

· Experience with a strategic AI platform.

· Experience with core business processes such as sales and marketing, order-to-cash, supply chain planning, inventory management, logistics, or procurement.

· Exposure to data modeling, data engineering, and/or modern cloud platforms.

· Experience in Food & Beverage, Livestock, Agriculture, Energy, or other process-driven industries.

 

WORK ENVIRONMENT

The physical and work demands listed below are representative of those an employee should possess to successfully perform the essential functions of the position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job.

· Primarily an office environment with some need to work in the field.

· The hours and days of work are established by departmental needs and at the discretion of management.

· After-hours, weekend, and occasional travel may be required to support the business.

 

WHY SEABOARD FOODS?

· Medical, vision, and dental benefits

· 401(k) with company match

· Paid Time Off and company holidays

· Wellness program and employee pork purchase program

· Tuition reimbursement

 

For a complete list of our benefits, please visit our career site: https://www.seaboardfoods.com/careers/why-sbf/

 

Seaboard Foods is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, gender identity, protected veterans’ status, status as a disabled individual, or any other status protected by law.