Principal P2P and Accounting Solution Architect - Zuora

COMPANY OVERVIEW

At Zuora, we do Modern Business. We’re helping people subscribe to new ways of doing business that are better for people, companies and ultimately the planet. It’s an approach resulting from the shift to the Subscription Economy that puts customers first by building recurring relationships instead of one-time product sales and focuses on sustainable growth. Through our leading expertise and multi-product suite, we are transforming all industries and working with the world’s most innovative companies to monetize new business models, nurture subscriber relationships and optimize their digital experiences.

THE TEAM & ROLE

Our Corporate Operation team is Zuora’s internal technology organization, responsible for creating technology experiences that connect our teams, drive business alignment and build a stronger, more collaborative workplace.” With a cloud-first approach, we empower our global ZEOs with increased productivity and self-service to enable company growth, scale, and flexibility while hardening our security and compliance posture.

The Digital Workplace team is responsible for all of our technology systems providing solutions for Zuora employees including internal Accounting, Procurement, Legal, and Human Resources departments.

We are looking for candidates to work in the Bay Area as our HQ is in Redwood City. Alternatively we are open to looking at candidates based remotely in California or in Austin, Texas.

YOUR MISSION

As a member of the IT organization partnering with various corporate functions, the Principal Solution Architect will act as a business technology expert & advisor on how to use technology to maximize efficiency and effectiveness on a day to day basis.

THE OPPORTUNITY

The Principal Solution Architect will have the opportunity to:

• Work with best-in-class SaaS applications, leading Technology and Software industry trends
• Grow within a business-centric team by becoming the primary point and the liaison between Procurement and Accounting teams
• Provide advice to implement technological choices within the architecture increasing business effectiveness and autonomy. 

OUR TECH STACK: NetSuite, Coupa Procurement and CoupaPay, Blackline, Zuora Revenue, SAP Concur, Avalara, Tonkean (ProcurementWorks)

WHAT YOU’LL ACHIEVE

• Become Within the first 30 days: 
• You will get acquainted with Zuora, your team, and cross-functional stakeholders inside and outside of Corporate Operations. You will begin to build trust with them and understand the nuances of each of their teams and processes.
• You will review and refine your onboarding plan with your manager, clearly defining your objectives together along with the resources/support needed to make you and your team successful. 
• You will understand how your work fits into the overall strategy and what is needed from you to positively contribute to that strategy. 
• You will begin to familiarize yourself with our tech stack and overall environment, focusing on Procure to Pay (P2P) & Record to Report (R2R) processes and applications.
• You will understand your team’s responsibilities and their current priorities.
  
  
• Within the first 90 days:
• You will continue building on all of the above.
• You will create a plan for how you will contribute to our overall strategy and success. 
• You will actively gain a strong understanding of your applications, product backlog, current bugs and pain points. You will use that understanding to define and refine a roadmap for new features and functionality.
• You will become the primary point of contact and liaison between business teams and development teams. You will be regularly communicating with your stakeholders to ensure alignment.
• You will start driving improvements to our systems:
• Lead business requirements gathering processes for system enhancements
• Analyze requirements; perform fit-gap analysis
• Understand and influence business process gaps via problem framing and applications solutioning
• Produce user stories, acceptance criteria, functional designs, specifications, prototypes, and proofs-of-concept for new and enhanced functionality
• Conduct Solution Reviews with project teams prior to design and development activities and ensure solution aligned with business requirements
• Advise on potential positive and negative implications of decisions
• You will troubleshoot and identify root causes for application issues; serve as tier 2-3 application support; Own and foster collaboration with System Administrators to resolve application defects and assemble IT teams to identify and lead system improvement opportunities to better serve business processes 
  
  
• By 6-9 months: 
• You will continue building on all of the above.
• You will fully support Procurement, AP, and Finance teams for key month-end processes.
• You will have an in-depth understanding of your P2P and R2R Applications domain.
• You will have successfully completed several projects/sprints that deliver measurable business value.
• You have established yourself as a trusted advisor among your stakeholders. You have built strong relationships that you leverage to enable mutual success. 
• You are actively evolving our systems and/or processes to a desired future state by maintaining an understanding of how current processes impact business operations; mapping current state against future state processes; identifying value gaps and opportunities for process enhancements or efficiencies; defining the impact of requirements on upstream and downstream solution components; providing recommendations to management on how to integrate requirements with current systems and business processes
• You stay abreast of new product enhancements and regularly adopt the relevant features in our instances.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

• Bachelor’s Degree in a Finance, Management Information Systems or related discipline
• 8+ years’ experience within a global Finance, Accounting, or Procurement SaaS environment
• 5+ years’ experience implementing end-to-end solutions on the Procure to Pay and Expense Management space
• Experience with multiple software delivery lifecycle methodologies such as Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid Agile (JIRA experience preferred)
• Experience working with middlelayer applications and can talk through the integration development process (no coding experience required)
• Experience performing detailed gap analysis, and preparing as-is & to-be process documentation
• Experience leading user acceptance testing (UAT) with business stakeholders
• Experience leading distributed teams to design solution architecture leveraging available technologies and being creative on how to bypass system limitations
• Ability to work on complex issues where analysis of situations or data requires an in-depth evaluation and may require collaboration across multiple functional/technical teams
• Ability to communicate in a clear and concise professional manner, tailored to the appropriate audience; including both verbal and written communications - reporting to senior management on a regular basis.
• Self-directed and proactive with ability to multi-task and take ownership of work
• Understanding of Accounting Close Process
• Some experience supervising and/or mentoring is desirable

Benefits*

• Competitive compensation, corporate bonuses, company equity, and retirement programs
• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• Paid holidays and “wellness” days and company wide winter break
• Generous, flexible time off 
• 6 months fully paid parental leave
• Learning & Development stipend
• Opportunities to volunteer and give back, including charitable donation match
• Free resources and support for your mental wellbeing  

#ZEOLife at Zuora

As an industry pioneer, our work is constantly evolving and challenging us in new ways that require us to think differently, iterate often and learn constantly—it’s exciting. Our people, whom we refer to as “ZEOs" are empowered to take on a mindset of ownership and make a bigger impact here. Our teams collaborate deeply, exchange different ideas openly and together we’re making what’s next possible for our customers, community and the world. 

As part of our commitment to building an inclusive, high-performance culture where ZEOs feel inspired, connected and valued, we support ZEOs with:

• Competitive compensation, corporate bonus program and performance rewards, company equity and retirement programs
• Medical, dental and vision insurance
• Generous, flexible time off 
• Paid holidays, “wellness” days and company wide end of year break
• 6 months fully paid parental leave 
• Learning & Development stipend
• Opportunities to volunteer and give back, including charitable donation match
• Free resources and support for your mental wellbeing  

Specific benefits offerings may vary by country and can be viewed in more detail during your interview process.

Location & Work Arrangements

Organizations and teams at Zuora are empowered to design efficient and flexible ways of working, being intentional about scheduling, communication, and collaboration strategies that help us achieve our best results. In our dynamic, globally distributed company, this means balancing flexibility and responsibility — flexibility to live our lives to the fullest, and responsibility to each other, to our customers, and to our shareholders. For this role, you will either be based in Bay Area (close to our Redwood City HQ), remotely in California or remotely in Austin, Texas.

Our Commitment to an Inclusive Workplace

Think, be and do you! At Zuora, different perspectives, experiences and contributions matter. Everyone counts. Zuora is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to creating an inclusive environment for all.

Zuora does not discriminate on the basis of, and considers individuals seeking employment with Zuora without regards to, race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.

We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply. Applicants in need of special assistance or accommodation during the interview process or in accessing our website may contact us by sending an email to assistance(at)zuora.com.