Expert Solution Architect - Infrastructure

(#10913) Job Location in Montreal, QC; Toronto, ON

The role of Expert Solution Architect Infrastructure is to define and recommend sound IT infrastructure architectures that will support the business needs and align with company direction and standards. This includes collaborate with enterprise architects and other solution architects, providing direction in the delivery of the solution to designers & integrators. More precisely, the role builds the solution, gets approval from other stakeholders (e.g. security, RAM, Safety, etc.), drives alignment of the proposed solution with the Enterprise & Domain strategies and roadmaps, manages risk mitigation, and as required handles issue escalation & resolution related to the architecture. The Expert signs off on architectures where they have the delegation authority and governs the implementation of the architecture during the design phase.

Main Responsibilities

• Review, understand and evaluate business requests to determine feasibility, impacts, risks, and recommendations
• Collaborate with System Architecture in shaping, scoping, defining, planning, and reviewing solutions
• Provide direction to and align specialized architects in project engagements, ensuring proposed solutions meets business needs and are aligned with (or properly exempted from) corporate standards
• Present and drive sign-off on the technology solution
• Manage architectural risk mitigations, issue escalation, and resolution processes
• Document the existing technology portfolio and propose recommendations for improvements and / or alternatives
• Document architecture for solutions requiring on-premises infrastructure and technology
• Evaluate current and emerging cloud and on-prem infrastructure technologies
• Create, support, and influence pragmatic architectural oversight, using principles, policies, and guardrails
• Design solutions that are modular and can be replicated and look for replication opportunities for solution being developed.
• Support other Solution Architects

REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelors degree or more in computer science or related discipline.
• 10+ years experience in IT
• 5+ years in similar role
• Strong ability to bring complex concepts to actionable architecture deliverables
• Strong ability at taking hard decisions by understanding and explaining trade-offs between business enablement and economics impacts
• The role requires people skills to influence and orient business and technical audience toward a common goal that is satisfying all stakeholders
• Very good ability to build collaborative cross functional relationships, pulling together and maintaining a cohesive and high functioning team
• Strong ability to lead team on a mandate and to lead decisions
• Ability to balance requirements and concerns from different stakeholders (business, finance, IT, etc.) and make efficient judgement calls, providing clear rationale for decisions
• Ability to deliver mandate with great autonomy self-driven
• Ability to breakdown complex concepts into digestible and actionable architectural components
• Ability to influence and orient business and technical audiences toward common goals and approaches
• Ability to navigate complex organizations and build collaborative cross functional relationships
• Ability to efficiently communicate with people of varying seniority and backgrounds
• Ability to guide and support cross functional teams (business, PMs, analysts, delivery, QA, support) during projects shaping and execution
• Ability to collaborate with and guide external development/configuration partners
• Autonomous and self driven, at the same time knowing when to reach out and how to provide adequate visibility
• Capacity to engage on multiple concurrent initiatives efficiently
• Curious and interested in acquiring knowledge over multiple new architecture concepts, business domains and technologies
• Capacity to perform with little or no prior knowledge of a project context, domain, or technologies
• Experience with numerous architectural fields: application, information, technology, security, etc.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills
• Experience and ability to coach other solution architects on new technology platforms and approaches.
• Knowledge with Service Oriented Architecture and Domain Driven Design

SKILLS & EXPERIENCES

• In depth knowledge of cloud-based infrastructure solutions and services.
• In depth knowledge of on-prem infrastructure solutions; data centers, compute, and storage
• Preferred with certification(s) on Azure and/or Google Cloud Platform
• Experience with platform-based architecture
• Experience with IT transformational initiatives
• Experience with cloud first paradigm shift
• Experience in program & project scoping and planning
• Experience with integration between legacy solutions
• Familiarity with standard IT security practices such as encryption, certificates, and key management.
• Preferred with Security certification or relevant IT security experience (CISSP, CCSP)
• Preferred with certification(s) for ITIL concepts as a plus.
• Experience with full application lifecycle management
• Knowledge of Archimate or UML modeling
• Transportation or rail related experience a plus

TECHNOLOGY & TOOLS IN SCOPE

Cloud (Azure, Google Cloud Platform), Virtual Servers, Windows Server, Linux Server, AIX, Storage, Backup, Netezza, ServiceNow, Kafka, Container Management (Anthos), Kubernetes, API platforms, Micro Services, Data Lake, Mobile Backend as a Service, Notification solutions, Access Management, Active Directory, LDAP