Application Solutions Architect

Job Description

As a Solutions Architect Consultant, you will play a key role in defining, designing, and developing the division's technological solutions. You will be responsible for addressing business needs, ensuring the alignment of solutions with the existing architecture and target directions, and producing the required architectural deliverables. You will collaborate closely with business stakeholders, managers, and members of project teams and squads.

Main Responsibilities

• Identify and document the functional capabilities required to meet expressed business needs.
  
• Determine the applications and services involved in the solutions and assess their impacts (coexistence, dependencies, performance, security).
  
• Develop the IT guidelines supporting the selected solutions.
  
• Produce solution architecture documentation, including coverage of non-functional requirements.
  
• Describe and simplify the solutions using architectural diagrams and models (ideally in Archimate).
  
• Support teams in the detailed design and integration of solutions.
  
• Develop transition, coexistence, conversion, and decommissioning strategies.
  
• Communicate effectively with various types of audiences: business, functional, management, scrum master, and delivery manager.
  
• Ensure solutions comply with Desjardins Group's standards, guidelines, and policies.
  
• Knowledge of modern architectures: microservices, event-driven, API-first, continuous integration.
  
• Functional and technical understanding of application components (services, APIs, modules, dependencies).
  
• Ability to challenge or support design decisions (patterns, anti-patterns, design impacts).
  
• Understanding of software quality issues: testability, observability, performance, coupling, application security.
  
• Define and enforce best practices for developing the Guidewire cloud solution.
  
• Mentor developers and serve as a resource person for all matters related to the Guidewire suite.
  
• Act as a key contact.
  

Requirements

Desired Profile

• The client is seeking a hybrid profile combining solution architecture and advanced technical expertise on the Guidewire suite, capable of contributing to both the definition of target solutions and the mentoring of the developers who implement them.
  
• The recurring keywords (Archimate, microservices, API-first, continuous integration, IaaS/PaaS/SaaS/CaaS) indicate a role rooted in modern distributed architectures, rather than a position limited to documenting architecture files.
  
• The explicit mention of Gosu and PCF configuration, in addition to the three modules PolicyCenter, ClaimCenter, and BillingCenter, indicates an expectation of direct technical mastery of the platform, not just remote supervision.
  
• The role requires the ability to challenge design decisions and quickly escalate critical issues, pointing towards a senior profile expected to be on the front line with project teams and managers.
  

This role should not be confused with a project manager or scrum master, despite the need to communicate with these stakeholders, nor with a pure enterprise architect, since the mandate remains rooted in the solution and its concrete implementation.

Requirement

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent
  
• 8+ years of experience in application solution architecture or a related role, including significant project experience
  
• 5+ years of experience with the Guidewire suite
  
• Technical proficiency with the Guidewire suite (PolicyCenter, ClaimCenter, BillingCenter), the Gosu language, and PCF page configuration
  
• Experience with inter-application integration (APIs, Web Services, event-driven architecture) and the microservices approach
  
• Proficiency with deployment concepts and methods on on-premises and cloud infrastructure (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, CaaS)
  
• Fluency in spoken and written French, intermediate-advanced level in English
  
• Ability to manage priorities in a matrix environment, communicate with diverse audiences (business, functional, management, scrum master, delivery manager), and quickly escalate critical issues
  

DESIRED

• Proficiency with an architecture repository and ArchiMate notation
  
• Knowledge of the Guidewire suite APIs
  

ASSET

• Knowledge of Guidewire's APD (Advanced Product Designer)
  
• Guidewire Certification (Associate, Specialist, or ACE)
  

WHAT WE DON'T WANT

• Less than 5 years of hands-on experience with the Guidewire suite.
  
• No direct technical configuration experience (Gosu, PCF), limited to a supervisory role.
  
• No concrete experience in solution architecture on IT evolution projects, limited to functional design.
  
• No experience in cross-application integration or event-driven architecture.
  
• Insufficient English for functional communication with stakeholders outside Quebec.