Solutions Architect

Staff – Non Union

Job Category
M&P – AAPS

Job Profile
AAPS Salaried – Information Systems and Technology, Level E2

Job Title
Solutions Architect

Department
Solution Architecture Integrated Renewal Program Student

Compensation Range
$9,425.83 – $14,727.42 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date
November 25, 2022

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the day prior to the Posting End Date above.

Job End Date

Apr 30, 2024

Job Summary

UBC has embarked on a multi-year journey to transform its academic and administrative support processes and system environments for the entire UBC community. In November 2020, UBC successfully went live with its new HR and Finance implementation of Workday. The Integrated Renewal Program (IRP) is now focused on the journey to renew the Student information ecosystem, anchored by the implementation of Workday Student.

The Integrated Renewal Program—Student (IRP Student) vision is to transform the way UBC supports learning and research, and how UBC works, to create a cohesive, integrated, and enriched experience for students, staff, and faculty. This implementation will result in superior support for UBC students, a better user experience, a new set of tools, a new way of working, and improved reporting for informed decision-making. IRP Student will leverage the industry-leading cloud enterprise solution Workday to replace our current core Student administration systems with a new integrated, user friendly, mobile-enabled platform.

For more information on the IRP, please visit www.integrated-renewal.ubc.ca

The Solutions Architect manages the overall design and development of an integration/solution architecture framework across complex campus-wide information systems or services and also provides expert advice to other professionals in the establishment of related strategies, guiding principles and policies.

This position also acts as a subject matter expert and provides project management, business process analysis, systems support coordination, and applications lifecycle management.
Organizational Status
The Solutions Architect reports to the Senior Manager, Solution Architecture.
Collaborates with leadership and staff within UBC IT to coordinate service delivery and enhancement projects. Works closely with campus stakeholders, vendors and external institutions.
The Solutions Architect is tasked with providing comprehensive and sustainable solutions to faculty and students.
Work Performed
Specific Duties:
– Performs the more complex elements of application development, systems management and support; applying an advanced level of technical expertise and judgment to achieve desired work outcomes.
– Develops quality assurance and performance management methodologies to ensure consistent and sustainable delivery of technology services.
– Contributes functional and technical expertise to the strategic planning and development of solutions for the University s application ecosystem.
– May be required to provide after-hours support in situations requiring an urgent response.
Core Duties:
– Manages the design and development of an architecture framework for complex campus-wide information systems or services including a technology architecture strategy, policies, guiding principles, and standards to govern how technology solutions will be developed and executed.
– Ensures all projects adhere to technology architecture and development standards and establishes compliance processes to review in-progress activity.
– Defines the solution architecture guiding principles and determines which integration capabilities are to be implemented.
– Provides technical leadership and expertise on architecture planning, processes and standards, system development methodologies, key business initiatives / issues, IT implications for systems or technologies and their impact on business solutions.
– Maps and analyzes the business process to the supporting applications and services to understand the impact of the requirements (functional and non-functional).
– Collaborates with senior professionals to develop a Requirements Traceability Matrix to ensure end-to-end traceability of the solution to the requirements and reuse existing technologies and/or solution patterns where appropriate.
– Researches, develops and documents advanced and specialized UBC applications, programming languages, industry best practices, organizational structures, Higher Education standards, and infrastructure, architecture, and technology in related areas from an architectural design/solutions perspective.
– Maintains appropriate professional designations and up-to-date knowledge of current information technology techniques.
– Performs other related duties as required.
Consequence of Error/Judgement
Decisions and actions taken by the Solution Architect will have a direct impact on how efficiently and effectively the team can deliver services to faculty and students. Errors in judgment, poor analysis, or failure to act decisively could have a detrimental effect on the University community.

Supervision Received
The Solutions Architect works under the general direction of the Senior Manager, Solution Architecture and has considerable latitude in the execution of his/her duties consistent with the goals and objectives for the functional area.
Supervision Given
Provides guidance, coaching and technical leadership to other team members. Recruitment and management of external consultants and indirect supervision of interdisciplinary teams of university staff on enterprise wide systems initiatives is also provided on a project-by-project basis.
Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. Post-graduate degree may be required for specialized positions. Minimum of nine years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience. Supervisory experience may be required. Technical expertise in a highly specialized area required.
Preferred Qualifications

Demonstrated information systems and technology leadership for at least 2 years. Experience in several of the following areas: project management, requirements definition, functional application design, configuration, implementation, testing, data conversion, training and documentation.

Extensive experience in the implementation, integration and support of complex systems. Identifies and improves communication to bring conflict within the team into the open and facilitate resolution. Openly shares credit for team accomplishment. Monitors individual and team effectiveness and recommends improvement to facilitate collaboration. Considered a role model as a team player.

Demonstrates high level of enthusiasm and commitment to team goals under difficult or adverse situations; encourages others to respond similarly. Strongly influences team strategy and processes. Broad knowledge of technology solutions and standards.
 

Ability to quickly learn and assess impact of new technologies.
Ability to communicate technical issues to technical and non-technical clients.
Ability to manage a diverse team of individuals responsible for varying tasks across units or areas of expertise.
Able to think strategically and conceptually.
Able to analyze complex issues and develop strategies or plans of action that focus on root causes not symptoms.
 

Demonstrated proactive approach to customer service and responsiveness to customer needs.
Strong understanding of IT Service Management methodologies and associated tools (e.g. ServiceNow).
 

Able to build support across the organization for the vision of IT.
Recognizes priorities and multi-tasks. Able to work under pressure in time-sensitive, mission critical situations, with minimum supervision.
 

Experience interacting with both technical and non-technical clients.
Strong communication, presentation and documentation skills. Converses with, writes strategic documents for, and creates/delivers presentations to internal business leaders as well as external groups. Leads discussions with senior leaders and external partners in ways that support strategic planning and decision-making. Seeks a consensus with business leaders. Debates opinions, tests understanding, and clarifies judgments. Identifies underlying differences and resolves conflict openly and empathetically. Explains the context of multiple, complex interrelated situations. Asks searching, probing questions, plays devil s advocate, and solicits authoritative perspectives and advice prior to approving plans and recommendations. Anticipates problem areas and associated risk levels with objective rationale. Uses formal methodologies to forecast trends and define innovative strategic choices in response to the potential implications of multiple integrated options. Generates and solicits the approval of senior leadership prior to defining critical issues and solutions to unclear, multi-faceted problems of high risk which span across and beyond the enterprise. Establishes strategic goals and enterprise-wide priorities. Uses techniques of advanced business and organizational analysis to identify and assess problem definitions and potential solutions, and compares and contrasts them against predetermined criteria. Creates framework for reviewing large volumes of unorganized data. Probes for, and points to, subtle and unclear relationships in highly complex matters and evaluates the merit of problem definitions and potential solutions. Anticipates the possible outcome of potential solutions. Systemically identifies and resolves complex enterprise-wide issues, while educating senior leaders as to their solution. Engineers, coordinates, and submits approval for significant enterprise-wide information system solutions that align with organizational processes and long-term strategies. Recommends large-scale, best practice technological opportunities. Engages appropriate technical consultants, experts, and leaders. Recommends long-term best-in-class policies and plans that will provide enhanced support across the enterprise. Sponsors, coordinates, and approves the enterprise strategic technology plan. Steers enterprise initiatives that support the technology strategy. Allocates and aligns resources to meet the objectives of the plan. Partners with senior enterprise leaders to integrate the strategic technology plan with the enterprise long-term plans