Expert Solution & System Integration

at  Canadian National Railway

At CN, we work together to move our company—and North America—forward. Be part of our Information & Technology (I&T) team, a critical piece of the engine that keeps us in motion. From enterprise architecture to operational technology, our teams use the agile methodology to automate and digitize our railroad ensuring our operations run optimally and safely and our employees can focus on value-added tasks. You will be able to develop your skills and career in our close-knit, safety-focused culture working together as ONE TEAM. The careers we offer are meaningful because the work we do matters. Join us!

JOB SUMMARY

As an Expert Solution & System Integration, you’ll be at the forefront of technology, seamlessly connecting business needs with user experience. Your role involves developing integration strategies for highly complex systems to serve railroad operations, creating precise interface specifications, and analyzing solutions to ensure smooth data flows across various IT/OT layers (hardware, platforms, applications, and legacy systems). Your leadership and meticulous product documentation will be instrumental in driving successful product development

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Technical Mastery: You’re the go-to technical expert for end-to-end solution delivery.
• Communication Agility: Whether simplifying tech jargon for non-technical stakeholders or engaging in complex discussions with the product team, you excel.
• Collaborative Mindset: You thrive in cross-functional environments, driving successful outcomes through teamwork.
  If you’re passionate about shaping cutting-edge solutions and ensuring seamless integration, we invite you to join our dynamic team!

SKILLS / FUNCTIONAL KNOWLEDGE:

• Entrepreneur mindset, self started and with solid leadership experience
• Strong communication skills – communicate well with technical and nontechnical audience and at all levels ( IT, business )
• Solid experience with SDLC in highly regulated and operation critical environments
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Strong organization skills
• Creative, innovator and strong analytical skills
• Experienced to building products with external vendors (on shore and off-shore)

EDUCATION / CERTIFICATION / EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor or Technical degree in Computer sciences, Software Engineering, or Information technology
• Minimum of 7-12 years of relevant experience in software engineering lifecycle process
• Familiar with API Management platforms such as APIGee (preferred), WSO2, SwaggerHub, Mashery or others
• Experience with API concepts and technologies such as REST, JSON, XML, SOAP, YAML, and Swagger
• Experience with cloud technologies (Google, Azure)
• Experience with Dev Opps tools and process
• Past exposure to Reliability, Maintainability and Safety requirements
• Past exposure to Mobile platform (Android OS, Apple OS, Firebase)
• Experience with Business requirement gathering process
• Experience with Data modeling
• Past exposure to mainframe systems
• Past exposure to high complexity system integration involving operation safety components (rail, aerospace, robotics, IoT, etc)
• Strong knowledge in technical and functional specifications using flowcharting, sequence diagrams, or any other UML pattern needed.
• Experience in leading a team in the context of a project lifecycle (waterfall and agile/hybrid agile)
• Bilingualism (nice to have) with high proficiency in English (spoken and written)

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Strategic Integration Leadership:

• Lead the software development lifecycle, overseeing end-to-end solution development envisioned by architects.
• Act as the technical bridge between solution architecture, business analysis, UI/UX design, development, infrastructure integration, quality testing, vendors, and project management.
• Ensure a consistent understanding of the solution across all team members.

1. Effective Collaboration:

• Collaborate seamlessly with cross-functional technical teams, fostering innovation and efficient problem-solving.
• Engage with both business stakeholders and technical experts, adapting communication styles as needed.

1. Solution Planning and Delivery:

• Work closely with Business and IT stakeholders during the planning phase.
• Define functional components and integration points within the solution.
• Identify task dependencies and sequence activities across teams.
• Support functional designers and uphold best practices in design documentation.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Research

• Collaborate with Business Area, Product Owner, Product Manager, Architects and Designers (UX/data), to understand business objectives and purpose of the future application
• Supports requirements gathering and architecture shaping
• Perform research to understand ‘As Is’ application(s) (when applicable) and architecture artifacts
• Perform research and get familiar with commercial package chosen (when applicable)
• Understand integration points between, hardware, front-end, backend and satellite systems and highlight potential solution delivery risks

1. Define

• Collaborate with UX, application and data designers to understand individual pieces and component of the solution design
• Collaborate with other IT stakeholder and vendors to understand integration points
• Envision and identify systems components required to deliver the full integrated solution
• Ensure all the pieces of the solution have been thought thru and that the solution respects the agreed architecture
• Collaborate with Business and Data Designers to define data conversion strategy
• Collaborate with Quality Assurance to build-up strategies and overall integration testing requirements
• Work closely with all teams involved (including vendors) in defining and planning the delivery of the solution

1. Deliver

• Oversee application design activities (including vendor’s)
• Lead design sessions and overall design decisions
• Advocate standardization and design patterns
• Work closely with IT Stakeholders (including vendors) in removing any solution barriers, translate the impact of these barriers to the project leadership, and manage and mitigate the associated risks
• Escalate potential architecture changes or change in scope
• Review and approve functional design documents and ensure consistency of documentation an integrated solution
• Coordinate solution activities among all the different teams involved
• Ensure that all requirements and integration failure points have been met through testing activities
• Finalize and lead conversion activity in collaboration with Business and Data Designer
• Collaborate to the preparation and coordination the full Implementation Plan
• Ensures solution is stable in production and properly transferred to core
• Master the end-to-end solution and act as the go-to person for any question related to the solution in scope for delivery
• Oversee support requests and ensure integrity of the long-term solution
• Ensure the solution follows the standard support procedures
• Ensure solution is stable and sustainable in Production Environment

1. Govern

• Assist in defining design standards, maintaining/evolving governance, and foundational best practices (i.e., design patterns, design principles.)
• Maintain the currency of the design documentation
• Analyze and evaluate design documentation and solution decomposition and improve based on lessons learns and best practice
• Assist in defining data modeling standards, and foundational best practices
• Collaborate in the elaboration of long-term vision to move toward interactive design and Design Thinking
• Lead technical discussions and moderate technical decisions