Senior Solution Architect

Payments Canada • Toronto, ON

1d • CA$88,500 - CA$118,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Payments Canada is seeking a Senior Solution Architect to drive the organization's technology vision by creating comprehensive solution architectures aligned with business and technology strategies. This role focuses on ensuring consistent strategy across diverse programs, adherence to enterprise architectural frameworks and technology governance, and optimizing the IT landscape for business value. The Senior Solution Architect will act as a key advisor, making strategic, time-sensitive decisions, and ensuring Payments Canada’s architectures and solutions are secure, resilient, proactive, and aligned with strategic business objectives.

Requirements

• Undergraduate degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field.
• Minimum five (5) years of experience in information systems and progressive experience in enterprise or solution architecture.
• Proven track record of developing and implementing strategic IT plans and mission-critical solution architectures.
• Deep understanding of enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g., TOGAF, Zachman) and their practical application.
• Eligibility to successfully complete background checks that will be carried out by Payments Canada, including criminal, credit, identity, employment, and education checks.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with the Canadian payment ecosystem (ACSS, Lynx, or RTR) is considered an asset.
• Experience architecting mission-critical systems in cloud environments (e.g., GCP, AWS, Azure) is considered an asset.
• Bilingualism (English and French) is considered an asset.

Responsibilities

• Foster trusted relationships across the organization and with external stakeholders to facilitate the development and adoption of technology strategies.
• Establish, build, and maintain strategic relationships within the payments ecosystem to gain buy-in for enterprise and solution architectures and build the reputation of Payments Canada as a center of excellence.
• Collaborate with Payments Canada members, user groups, and technical specialist groups to provide advice on payment system and architecture issues.
• Facilitate strategic meetings and communicate complex architecture designs to all levels of leadership and stakeholders in a compelling, business-centric manner.
• Champion architectural excellence at all levels and divisions of the organization in support of Payments Canada’s goals.
• Provide technical guidance and subject matter expertise to the broader architectural community, fostering an environment of technical excellence.
• Participate in knowledge transfer within the Enterprise Architecture team and across the organization to share solution architecture best practices.
• Act as a lead technical contributor across various engagements, providing expert oversight on complex initiatives.
• Create and maintain a culture of continuous learning and development to enable the architectural function to continue to mature.
• Contribute to the long-term technology vision and enterprise architecture framework, ensuring solution architectures contribute to its realization.
• Lead the architectural designs for the Real-Time Rail (RTR) and other complex initiatives, ensuring designs mitigate risks and address technical debt.
• Establish and enforce enterprise architecture standards, policies, and guidelines, ensuring compliance with ISO 20022 and relevant regulatory frameworks.
• Produce and maintain strategic architecture artifacts, including system interaction, data flow, and event sequence diagrams.
• Lead the development of reusable payments reference architectures and design patterns to accelerate system delivery.
• Develop multi-year architecture roadmaps and business cases for strategic initiatives.
• Collaborate with business leaders and external stakeholders to present complex architectural recommendations and strategies in a compelling, business-centric manner.
• Ensure architectural controls within all solutions are designed and built using a risk-based approach.
• Assess risk and prioritize decisions effectively in time-sensitive situations, especially when making architectural choices.
• Ensure compliance with the Payments Canada Enterprise Architecture Framework, Standards, and Tools.
• Monitor industry, technology, and market trends (e.g., emerging fintech, payment protocols) to determine their potential impact on Payments Canada.
• Discover, evaluate, and recommend technology solutions to drive innovation and ensure future-ready designs.
• Collaborate with third-party vendors to deliver resilient and scalable architectures that align with corporate strategies.

Benefits

• Flexible, hybrid (remote/office) environment.
• Competitive compensation package, including annual variable bonus and defined contribution pension plan with employer matching percentage (if eligible).
• Comprehensive health and dental benefit coverage, including mental health coverage, life insurance and a health spending account for you and your dependents (Permanent and temporary employees with contracts 12 months and over).
• Paid time off: minimum four weeks paid vacation, sick and personal days, December holiday shutdown and cultural holiday observance days.
• 26 weeks of paid maternity and parental leave top-up (if eligible)
• Rewards and recognition program.
• Access to office gym facilities.
• Internal and external professional development opportunities.
• Fun team and organizational events.
• Monthly all staff forums led by our Executive Leadership Team.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior