Senior Platform Architect

Position Title: Senior Platform Architect

Position Number (Final): 00508228

Employee Group: Managerial & Professional

Job Category: Information Technology

Department or Area: IT Services

Location: Kingston, Ontario, Canada (Hybrid)

About Queen's University

Queen’s University is the Canadian research intensive university with a transformative student learning experience. Here the employment experience is as diverse as it is interesting. We have opportunities in multiple areas of globally recognized research, faculty administration, engineering & construction, athletics & recreation, power generation, corporate shared services, and many more.

We are committed to employment equity and diversity in the workplace and welcome applications from individuals from equity seeking groups such as women, racialized/visible minorities, Indigenous/Aboriginal peoples, persons with a disability, persons who identify in the LGBTQ+ community and others who reflect the diversity of Canadian society.

Come work with us!

Job Summary

Reporting to the Enterprise CRM Manager, Information Technology Services (IT Services), the Senior Platform Architect is responsible for designing, building, configuring, testing, and deploying platform and system technologies to achieve a highly valuable digital environment, resulting in first-rate services. The Architect is a subject matter expert in complex platform and system architecture and higher education technologies, possessing expert knowledge of equipment, platforms, protocols, systems, and tools. The Architect is responsible for effective project planning, establishing and maintaining relationships with various constituent groups, and maintaining efficient use of resources. The Architect is an excellent problem solver who acts as a leader and shares knowledge with other team members. The Architect also takes the lead to provide subject matter expertise and coaches junior team members.

Job Description

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Plan:
   • Stays current with relevant advances in higher education technologies, gains a deep understanding of the University’s strategic goals and delivers the future state digital architecture.
   • Stays current with relevant advances in the Salesforce ecosystem.
   • Leads and participates in requirements gathering and analysis.
   • Performs scoping and translates customer business requirements into technical specifications and scoping documents.
   • Produces feasibility and effort estimates.
   • Plans solution design and delivery steps, deployment phases, and quality assurance guidelines.
2. Design & Engineer:
   • Designs secure, robust, capable platform and system technologies for the University.
   • Translates requirements into detailed design documents and technical specifications document.
   • Develops architecture documents to ensure solutions proposed by various internal teams, third party vendors and/or customers meet customers’ technical and functional business requirements that adhere to all industry and customer specified standards.
   • Performs system and compliance analysis to ensure data processing and storage meets current and future privacy and security requirements; tests new protocols and technologies and develops a strategy for implementation and governance.
   • Configures and tests the performance of digital platforms and applications.
3. Transition to Operations:
   • Delivers business and system capabilities and service transition documentation.
   • Provides Tier 3 troubleshooting.
   • Provides technical leadership and knowledge transfer to technical staff.
   • Identifies training activities to develop skills for Tier 1-3 technical support.
   • Defines and documents scope of work for multiple projects and activities with varying levels of complexity, timelines, and importance within the team.
   • Coordinates with the Service Delivery and Innovation teams for project implementation.
   • Participates in implementation, verification, and acceptance testing of digital platforms and applications.
   • Produces and maintains detailed technical documentation (architecture, operations procedures, and specifications).
   • Develops and deploys automated operational tools to facilitate the management systems.
   • Provides management and executive team members with reports on project status, accomplishments, milestones, and challenges.
   • Participates in change management procedures and weekly meetings.
   • Provides technical consultation to both internal and external teams.
   • Establishes and maintains partnerships with teams and vendors involved in projects.
   • Works with vendors and stakeholders to understand product and solution roadmaps.
   • Develops and documents platform and system architecture reference material.
   • Manages changes to the project scope, project schedule, and project costs using appropriate verification techniques.
4. Management:
   • Understands IT industry trends, business trends, IT best practices, standards, and resources to ensure continuous optimization of IT service delivery.
   • Provides ongoing coaching to team members for current assignments and develops them into positions in which they will succeed. Sets goals that requires continuous improvement of performance through constructive feedback, cross-training and skill development.
   • Acts as a professional, promoting a supportive and inclusive work environment.
   • Provides work direction, and technical/functional guidance to staff. Schedules and assigns work and oversees its completion. Coordinates and monitors workflow.
   • Participates in screening and interviewing job candidates, and providing input into staff selection.
   • Reviews assignments and provides feedback on work to employees. Provides input on work performance to management staff.
   • Provides orientation and on-the-job training to employees in the unit. Provides coaching and feedback on work quality issues, providing related day-to-day supervision. Escalates unresolved performance and/or disciplinary matters to management.
5. Continuous Improvement:
   • Mentors IT Services and clients on adherence to university policy and service architecture guidelines.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

1. University degree with a concentration in computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science or related field combined with several years IT security or information security experience with a proven ability to engage with all levels of management.
2. Experience with Salesforce and Azure is required.
3. Strong experience in leading and managing professional and technical staff.
4. Advanced IT experience with application/system security, privacy, operating systems, and digital platforms used within the higher education domain.
5. Experience in conducting IT compliance assessments upholding standards and processes.
6. Knowledge of common implementation technologies and protocols, for example, SIEM, IdAM, Unix scripting, LDAP, Radius, SSO, VDI, databases, Active Directory, Azure, Java, and web stacks on Linux and Windows.
7. Experience in developing IT platform and system architecture and integrating capabilities in a complex multi-cloud environment.
8. Experience with multiple networking protocols and topologies, operating systems, Internet technologies (Domain Name Service, Email, Public Key Infrastructure) and fluent with IT security technologies.
9. Salesforce Platform Developer Certification is an asset.
10. Salesforce Technical Architect Certification is an asset.
11. Excellent verbal and written communication skills including experience in writing technical documentation.
12. Consideration may be given to an equivalent combination of education and experience.

SPECIAL SKILLS:

1. Building Relationships: builds constructive working relationships characterized by a high level of acceptance, cooperation, and mutual respect.
2. Business Acumen: builds strong business acumen by sustaining a strong customer service perspective.
3. Change Management: champions change and fosters the team and environment for change.
4. Collaboration and Teamwork: promotes collaboration and commitment within a team to achieve goals and deliverables.
5. Communication: displays confidence and articulates a clear message when interacting with diverse audiences utilizing excellent verbal and written communication skills.
6. Client Orientation: builds and maintains a client-centric culture by working closely with the customer while maintaining a high level of client satisfaction.
7. Decision Making & Judgement: relies on experience, thinking several steps ahead in deciding the best course of current/future actions to develop, recommend policy framework based on analysis of emerging trends.
8. Integrity: earns others’ trust and respect through consistent honesty and professionalism in all interactions.
9. Initiative: acts to address problems; focuses on results and desired outcomes and how best to achieve them and gets the job done.
10. Leadership: sets clear, meaningful, challenging, and attainable common goals and expectations that are linked to the mission, vision, values and goals aligned with the organization and strives to achieve them.
11. Planning & Organizing: executes proposed actions within predetermined timelines against organizational goals. Develops and integrates current/future plans to achieve the overall organization goals.
12. Strategic Perspective: develops and proactively implements long term organizational goals, considering the competitive landscape, that will move the organization forward.
13. Innovation: develops creative ideas that provide solutions to all types of workplace challenges.
14. Driving for Results: demonstrates a desire to meet and exceed one’s own performance objectives. Not accepting the status quo, takes a calculated risk to improve the organization’s performance.
15. Developing Others: enables team members to grow and succeed through consistent constructive feedback, and encouragement.
16. Self-Development: displays an ongoing commitment to learning and self-improvement to enhance the performance of the team.

DECISION MAKING:

1. Determines when to make changes to production platforms/systems, which affect users across campus.
2. Determines the timing of resolving digital problems. Develops timely solutions to avoid major administrative problems caused by security breaches.
3. Acts as consultant to campus customers and makes recommendations on methods of doing work under current procedures.
4. Confidentiality is paramount; therefore, aptitude to differentiate what information is sharable when and to whom.
5. Determines when to involve senior staff in resolving complex or sensitive systems problems.
6. Allocates time and resources to ensure project completion, based on the priority of tasks on hand.
7. Assesses the suitability of job candidates and recommends the most appropriate person for hire.
8. Determines priorities and makes decisions about staff utilization and the assignment of work to achieve optimum efficiencies and productivity.
9. Assesses employees’ training needs and makes recommendations for internal or external training to attain proficiency.
10. Monitors and assesses output and the quality of employees’ work, and recommends need for formal training or development plans to management and identifies possible staff performance and/or disciplinary issues.
11. Deals with operational problems that occur outside of working hours to avoid major customer impact.
12. Plans new initiatives within IT Services and, upon request, for other departments. Determines project guidelines and timelines.

Employment Equity and Accessibility Statement

The University invites applications from all qualified individuals. Queen’s is committed to employment equity and diversity in the workplace and welcomes applications from women, visible minorities, Aboriginal Peoples, persons with disabilities, and persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity. In accordance with Canadian Immigration requirements, priority will be given to Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

The University provides support in its recruitment processes to all applicants who require accommodation due to a protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code, including those with disabilities. Candidates requiring accommodation during the recruitment process are asked to contact Human Resources at hradmin@queensu.ca.