Solution Architect

at  WestJet

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS:

• Postgraduate Qualification in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems or Information Security and 5+ years of experience preferred, or an equivalent combination of training and experience
• Current Solution Architect and/or Cloud certification(s) preferred.
• Demonstrated leadership skills, providing mentorship and technical guidance to other team members
• Requires expert problem-solving skills and advanced interpersonal and communication skills including influencing others
• Broad knowledge of all aspects of IT, including application development, network and system administration, quality assurance, and application and data management
• Strong understanding of development architecture such as API, web services, etc.
• Strong understanding of data privacy, cloud security, application security, platform security, authentication security and database security controls
• Strong understanding of domain-specific modelling frameworks
• Intermediate understanding of domain related architecture frameworks and modelling languages including TOGAF, SABSA, Archimate and the C4 model
• Strong knowledge of industry best practices and applicable regulatory requirements, including PCI, PIPEDA, GDPR, CCPA
• Strong knowledge of computer and telecom systems, hardware and software theory, practice, concepts, and technology relevant to organizational vision and business outcomes
• Intermediate knowledge of programme, project and agile methodologies and their applicability to successful delivery of technical change

REVIEW OF ROLE:

The Solution Architect has end-to-end responsibility for ensuring the completeness of solution architecture in their domain of practice or scope of business capability delivery. This is achieved by adequately addressing all the pertinent concerns of stakeholders and the integrity of the architecture, in terms of appropriate application and component selection and their adherence to corporate architectural standards. They will also satisfactorily reconcile the conflicting concerns of different stakeholders and show the trade-offs made in meeting the appropriate goals. The choice of which architecture views to develop is one of the key decisions that the Senior Solution Architect must make. This choice must be constrained by considerations of practicality, cost, and the principle of fitness-for-purpose. The Senior Solution Architect has the responsibility for architectural design and documentation to create technologically superior solutions required for an agile and efficient business.
The role is responsible for developing, maintaining, and ensuring the integrity of end-to-end technology solutions to address specific project / programme / product requirements and align to technology strategies, architectures, and engineering standards.

KEY DELIVERABLES / RESPONSIBILITIES INCLUDE:

• Leading the development of architectures for complex solutions ensuring consistency with agreed requirements.
• Establishing policies, principles, and practices for the selection of solution architecture components.
• Managing trade-offs and balances functional, service quality and systems management requirements within a significant area or value stream of the organization.
• Communicating proposed decisions to multiple stakeholders across the WestJet Group, including ELT.
• Coordinating and managing the target architecture across multiple projects or initiatives, across WestJet business units and with third-party suppliers or partners.
• Maintaining a stable, viable architecture and ensures consistency of design and adherence to appropriate standards across multiple projects or initiatives, across WestJet business units and with third-party suppliers or partners.
• Defining the planned operation and maintenance of the solution within a production environment — include changes to services, process, organization, and operating models as well as technology.
• Ensuring that existing and planned solution components are compatible with relevant architectures, strategies, policies, standards and practices
• Considering requirements for security, privacy and testing of solutions
• Taking account of relevant architectures, strategies, policies, standards and practices identifying appropriate cloud services.
• Developing roadmaps to migrate components to cloud services.
• Developing and communicating implementation roadmaps across multiple business units and with external partners.
• Providing guidance and risk-based governance to support solution implementation including managing requests for changes and deviations from specifications.
• Being accountable for ensuring the completeness (fitness-for-purpose) of the architecture by adequately addressing all the pertinent concerns of its stakeholders and reconciling the conflicting concerns of different stakeholders, leading to a sign-off the architectural design as fit for purpose.
• Understanding and interpreting requirements by probing for information, influencing people, facilitating consensus, synthesizing / translating ideas into actionable items and articulating those ideas to others. Embody requirements in the architecture specification.
• Being responsible for developing well-formulated models of the components of the solution, augmenting the models as necessary to fit all the circumstances. Showing multiple views through models to communicate ideas effectively.
• Being responsible for developing end-to-end user-focused solutions that interact effectively with one another to provide scalable, reliable, and resilient functionality to the end-users.
• Tracking and evaluating emerging trends in domain knowledge area(s) and maintaining a strong relationship with appropriate vendors in that space.
• Maintaining a strong knowledge of the technologies, techniques, and business concepts (as related to IT) used within the solution architecture domain.
• Being responsible for helping set and maintain architectural standards, as derived by corporate standards bodies such as Architecture Boards or equivalent.
• Being responsible for understanding the necessary IT support functions and infrastructure requirements to meet the needs of the solution architecture domain.
• Being accountable for multiple roadmaps (i.e. high level views of technology and the organization from which plans are created and/or evolved). Roadmaps will include business growth opportunities via technology, functional areas to focus on and where to invest technology dollars, etc.
• Collaborating and mentoring other architects, developers, SMEs, project managers, analysts, business stakeholders, etc, to provide optimal solutions that are aligned with corporate strategies while being open minded to other ideas and not driving a specific agenda.
• Presenting concepts to senior leaders as necessary, up to and including the CEO, while explaining technical items in an appropriate manner for non-technical audiences.
• Maintaining thought leadership and contributing to mentorship of others in a way that contributes to strategy and acts as a catalyst for change, as opposed to a barrier.