The Solution Architect is an accomplished member of the Enterprise Architecture team who provides solution leadership, content, and governance to projects. This role is driven by business opportunities needing IT elements or services. The Solution Architect’s primary purpose is to define what solution building blocks a project needs to deliver that ensure conformance with Servus’ architectures and preferred patterns. Being realistic about all constraints and negotiating alternatives to fit within budget, while staying true to enterprise goals, and adhering to standards are challenges for this role. The Solution Architect is accountable for the overall viability and integrity of a solution and sees things through to completion.

When facing a whiteboard, the Solution Architect is comfortable leading and working in the abstract devising and applying patterns that model and illustrate a solution forming at a conceptual level. Broad IT contextual understanding is expected for this role. Comprehensive knowledge across business, application, information and technology domains allows the Solution Architect to define well-balanced solutions that can survive the long run. Generating views and providing solution walk-throughs to any kind of stakeholder in a project is expected, and should be delivered at the level where the recipient is comfortable working. Being capable of starting new software development with an application architecture context, extensions to SOA messaging, and an information model are assets to have.

The Solution Architect starts early in evaluating options and helps negotiate and define needed components. The Solution Architect is aware of component inventories, can conceive of adaptations for reuse, scouts the marketplace for products and services, or determines when new development is needed or cloud-sourced components are best. The Solution Architect is disciplined at comparative evaluations and adeptly narrows a range of possibilities to make the “best” choices for a workable solution within a given timeline. Then helps a project manager load a plan with work streams to deliver them.

This role is expected to remain agile in approach, with strong instincts for deciding and organizing what actions are needed next to best keep project momentum going. The Solution Architect sticks with projects to monitor compliance and can make adjustments to overcome obstacles and accommodate change. Projects use the Solution Architect as the go-to person for construction direction and authority on architectural conformity throughout the delivery, until project completion.

Enterprise capabilities and information system architectures constrain solutions and sometimes must be stretched. As an Enterprise Architecture team member, the Solution Architect subscribes to EA principles and can marshal domain expertise from this body as needed to grow the right solution definition. The Solution Architect supports an architecture development process to enhance our capabilities. Documenting significant decisions for modifying or selecting new solution building blocks and writing prescriptive guidance describing compliant use of these components (as intended by architecture) are common communication tools delivered by this role.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead project management and business owners through a process of narrowing a problem statement to settle on an overall scope and approach to solve it. Provides solution sketches, rough cost estimates, and comparative viewpoints as supporting material to help make decisions.
• Write a formal Architecture Definition per solution where IT components and IS services are needed, filling any gaps, and shows traceability back to business and functional requirements.
• Formalize architecturally significant pattern selections by using an Architectural Decision process that offers transparency on applicability.
• Assist with project management work breakdown structure planning, and ensures work package coverage is complete for realizing the whole solution.
• Supply team leadership by ensuring architecture goals are communicated as work transitions to detailed specifications, before any construction begins.
• Suggest testing approaches for untried areas in the solution to ensure non-functional requirements are being met by the solution.
• Oversee the creation, delivery and approval of detailed design specifications being produced by the lead developer, and review test plans being produced by the test lead.
• Oversee the solution testing approach paying particular attention to performance metrics, and deployment to give configuration guidance for smooth operation.
• Create Prescriptive Guidance to illustrate or correct the use of solution building blocks so they conform with architectural intent, wherever uncertainty or ambiguity exists.
• Identify gaps and maintains Solution Building Blocks repository and their associated roadmaps as architectural assets. Actively seeks ways to re-use components to improve ROI on assets.
• Is an ambassador for the Enterprise Architecture function and will advocate benefits of longer term or more holistic thinking.
• Supportive of Enterprise Architecture function using TOGAF for architecture management and its development.

Experience:

• 15 years IT experience and currently close to the IT industry.
• 5 years in any one IT architecture domain as an architect professional or managerial role.
• Financial Industry experience mandatory: understands risk based approaches, regulatory and compliance issues, and security and privacy requirements typical of financial institutions operating in Alberta.
• Other IT experiences ranging a variety of different IT disciplines.
• Held leadership positions in many projects differing in type of solution spaces.
• Formal IT methodology practitioner and project management methodology participant.
• Proven track record of designing complex solutions on a variety of platforms, followed through to implementation and operations.
• Experience in enterprise architecture best practices, architecture development processes, different architecture domain modeling techniques, and solution description languages.
• Software application development experiences with different SDLC approaches, and versed in specification level writing.
• Systems integration experience in a SOA environment having an Enterprise Service Bus and web services based messaging standards, adapting to COTS and custom applications.

Education and Training:

• University degree or college diploma in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related IT discipline.
• TOGAF certification or functional proficiency with similar methodology or framework is a requirement.
• ITIL certification is an asset.

Licenses/Certificates:

• TOGAF certification is an asset, or functional proficiency using any equivalent structured methodology or framework is a requirement.
• Process consulting certifications (ITIL) is an asset.

Any other special requirements necessary to do the job:

The business may from time to time ask for branch and/or department support for special projects and/or areas experiencing staff shortages. All employees may be asked to volunteer to assist in areas of need during these times. These assignments could result in a change of hours, location, and/or travel.

Why Servus Credit Union? We live our values in how we do business and how we treat our employees. Servus Credit Union is one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies. Servus is committed to being socially responsible and living the co-operative values. Through our operations, we strive to make a positive impact on our economy, the environment and society. We know that our employees are our most valuable assets so we offer ongoing growth and career advancement and we reward employees for their hard work and achievements.