Senior Solution Architect

Company: CGIC
Department: 0
Employment Type: Regular Full-Time
Work Model: Hybrid (2 days in office)
Language: This role operates in English.The Opportunity:

We are a leading Canadian financial services co-operative committed to being a catalyst for a sustainable and resilient society and our team is essential to deliver on this strategy. That’s why we prioritize our people, to ensure we provide a strong culture and development opportunities which enables our team to thrive and to live our purpose. The best part is that you will work with people that care passionately about you, our clients and our communities.

The Senior Solution Architect is a senior technical leadership role that ensures strategy and design of technology will meet client and company expectations and integrate with defined enterprise architectural standards and direction. The role supports business initiatives and corporate objectives and will specialize in Solution Delivery for Corporate Solution areas such as Legal, Records Management, Privacy, Compliance, Business Optimization & Automation, Finance, etc. The Senior Solution Architect works closely with and informally directs other IT professionals in various areas (e.G. Infrastructure & Operations staff, applications development teams, other Solution Architects, and Enterprise Architects) on complex design/development considerations and techniques to enforce consistency, reusability, and optimization across the enterprise, while balancing numerous factors including but not limited to operational stability, feasibility and availability of the enterprise applications and resources to support delivery.

• Evaluate the feasibility of complex enterprise architecture concepts and determine practical approaches to implement and meet the business needs. Translate the conceptual architecture into common services and plans.
• Analyze the current application/technology/data environments to detect critical deficiencies and recommend solutions for improvement.
• Oversee and design of enterprise major mission-critical applications/infrastructure/data models.
• Initiate and lead in design/code reviews and architectural compliance activities to help ensure that designs are in accordance with Information Technology (IT) strategies, standards, and plans.
• Ensure solutions meet requirements for integrity, scalability, availability, reusability, audit and disaster recovery.
• Provide senior-level consultation and support on various tasks related to application/technology/data integration or system development. As lead resource, organize, direct and control the activities carried out by the team, managing changes, issues, integration points and risks.
• Manage relationships with Corporate Solutions Delivery business colleagues and leaders in support of the overall portfolio. Communicate, collaborate and consult with technology and business colleagues and leaders in support of organizational goals and objectives.
• Research best practices on technical issues or products, stay current on vendor technology plans and provide leadership in the adoption of new technologies and methodologies. Play an active role in the evaluation and selection of software applications/tools, hardware technology, or data models by providing technical requirements and helping translate business requirements. Participate in developing new product standards and design of standard production configurations.
• Oversee or consult at a senior level on the implementation and modification activities for applications/technical infrastructure, particularly for new and shared solutions.

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in providing technical leadership for complex solution environments (including software, and infrastructure).
• Diploma or Degree in Information Technology or Computer Science with at least 15 years relevant progressive IT experience, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience with developing solution architectures within an agile development environment would be considered an asset.
• Experience developing shared services and implementing supporting ITIL frameworks would be considered an asset.
• Experience deploying multi-cloud architectures would be considered an asset.
• Proficiency in English is essential to the main duties in this role, including servicing and communicating primarily with majority non-francophone clients, groups, teams. Drafting complex English documents and preparing daily reports for anglophone leaders. The essential non-French duties are not assignable to adjacent or other team members.
• Deep expertise in Azure networking, including VNets, hub-and-spoke or Virtual WAN topologies, peering, Private Link, and Azure Firewall
• Proven experience designing hybrid connectivity with ExpressRoute, site-to-site VPN, BGP routing and DNS integration
• Strong knowledge of network security and zero trust principles, including segmentation, NSGs, WAF and DDoS protection
• Proficiency with infrastructure as code (Terraform and/or Ansible), CI/CD pipelines and Azure Policy
• Ability to design for high availability and disaster recovery, document architecture clearly and guide stakeholders through technical trade-offs

• You have an innovative mindset to improve operational efficiencies and ability to influence change, with a primary focus on client needs.
• You use critical thinking skills to recognize assumptions, evaluate arguments, draw conclusions and proactively propose solutions.
• You have strong communication skills to clearly convey messages and explore diverse points of view.
• You build trusting relationships and provide guidance to support the development of colleagues.

• You will be subject to a Background check as a condition of employment, in the event you are the successful candidate.

• Training and development opportunities to grow your career.
• Flexible work options and paid time off to support your personal and family needs.
• A holistic approach to your well-being, with physical and mental health programs and a supportive workplace culture.
• Paid volunteer days to give back to your community.
• In addition to our competitive salary and incentive programs, eligible employees also benefit from a comprehensive total rewards package including group retirement savings plans, pension and benefits (e.G., health and wellness, dental, disability and life coverage), mental health support and an employee assistance program.

Expected salary range $114,021 - $164,000+

The salary amount for the successful candidate is determined by Co-operators in its discretion and will vary depending on several criteria including but not limited to: local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualification, experience and education.

Employees may also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn additional compensation tied to individual and/or business performance, or other business metrics.