The posting
Job Title: Solution Designer, Infrastructure Delivery Services
Role Summary:
The Solution Designer, Infrastructure Delivery Services provides senior level technical expertise in directing, planning, designing, developing and implementing advanced / complex infrastructure technology-based solutions, driven by technology or business initiatives. Solutions cater to multiple platforms, technologies and environments, both in the cloud and on-premise. The incumbent will have deep and broad subject matter expertise, enabling them to provide technical leadership and team direction to project teams for the acquisition, configuration and implementation of applications from simple to complex and / or specialized, and which are developed internally, commercial-off-the-shelf software, or by third parties. The incumbent is responsible for the identification and selection of appropriate technology services based on requirements and constraints, and can evaluate new technologies for fit in the current technology landscape and per the enterprise technology roadmap. The incumbent will ensure solutions are in line with industry best practice, and completely meet related enterprise policies, standards and the business needs of internal and external client stakeholders.
Key Accountabilities
- Identifies, selects and supports new or existing products, technologies and platforms underlying and integrating with new, enhanced and existing applications (e.g. transactional solutions, business intelligence solutions, etc.); coordinates major research and design projects; ensures solution designs are compliant with target architectures; and ensures logical design of all solutions.
- Provides architectural consulting expertise, direction and technical advice based on strategic architecture decisions and tactical solution needs, produces artefacts on solutions, options and directions to senior management, project managers, business analysts, system analysts, IT engineers, IT operations and internal clients.
- Provides situational appraisals for projects and high-level recommendations on solution feasibility and / or options for high value / mission critical investments, including both high-level conceptual options and / or detailed solution designs when business requirements are already in place.
- Identifies and presents value-added assessments and recommendations, such as opportunities for automation, improved performance, cost savings or other optimizations to project teams and business areas, and provides feedback to architecture on design blueprints.
- Solicits and documents solution requirements; ensures requirements, design blueprints and final architectures have been completely and properly translated, providing requestors and stakeholders with a fully implementable and supportable, end-to-end solution
- Conducts research, develops options and recommendations for adoption of new or emerging infrastructure technologies, techniques, best practices, tool sets, etc., to ensure organizational currency, flexibility and competitive advantage for delivering cost effective, state-of-the-art solutions.
- Orchestrates integration projects and corresponding strategies between business units and development teams. Works diligently to enhance or improve business processes via integration or, as necessary, minimizing the impact of integration on those processes.
- Assists the Director, Application Operations & Infrastructure Services, and project managers with the development of proposals / business cases for new / revised system implementations that will solve complex business problems by performing in-depth analysis of proposed results / benefits / costs, giving concise documented briefings on findings to key stakeholders.
- Documents, develops and maintains in-depth knowledge of companys strategic business plans, existing architecture, infrastructure and technology portfolio.
- Recommends and communicates plans for infrastructure investments, including analysis and opportunities for cost reduction.
- Designs, develops and implements solutions with appropriate non-functional elements such as disaster recovery and business continuity plans, high availability, security, performance, monitoring, backup, archive, operations, and service delivery.
- Leads or participates in sessions related to data gathering, solution review, design walkthroughs, project initiation, gating, etc.
- Focal point for escalations and owns the issues to resolution.
- Ensures that solutions are fit for purpose and will meet, adhere to, and enforce the enterprise standards, policies and follow procedures related to architecture, corporate strategy, security, privacy, systems development, application lifecycle, operations, and data and application management, identifying any challenges to prescribed norms and mitigating where possible; solutions should leverage existing services or designs as appropriate.
- Designs, develops, oversees and assists with the implementation of the end-to-end solutions, supporting and resolving design issues during implementation, developing and managing artefacts such as detailed physical and / or logical diagrams and infrastructure capacity plans
- Oversees and contributes to testing and test plan development, for release to production or disaster recovery, ensuring to meet performance requirements; validates that disaster recovery plans are complete and executable.
Experience Required
- Graduate or post graduate university degree in the field of computer science, and 7+ years equivalent work experience
- 5+ years experience solving business problems using innovative technology solutions and related practices
- 5+ years experience designing or implementing solutions in support of digital banking, data, collaboration, payments, Retail and Corporate lines of business
- Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment
- Hands-on administrative experience with large scale technology infrastructure and integration across a number of platforms and products: networking, security, database and middleware, virtualization, operating systems and command-line administration and scripting
Knowledge Required
- Thorough knowledge of large-scale, complex systems analysis techniques, methodologies and relevant architectures, including experience with service oriented architectures (SOA) and related technologies, design of distributed applications, security design and implementation considerations
- Experience developing IT and cloud infrastructure
- Experience in software engineering and design architecture
- Project management methodologies, analytical tools and processes, in order to develop and assess cost estimates, provide technical leadership for projects as needed, and support project plans.
- Expert knowledge of Cloud, DevOps, Containerization, Agile and related technologies and practices
Skills Required
- Effective written and oral communication skills to prepare artefacts, and explain technical solutions to IT and non-technical internal and external stakeholders.
- Good storytelling and presentation skills
- Excellent time and relationship management skills
- Leadership, teamwork and project management skills to advise major, complex IT projects, interface with teams of project staff and external consultants, liaise and coordinate with project managers, and ensure project deliverables are delivered within specified parameters and where necessary, provide guidance to junior members of the team.
- Well-developed / advanced business analysis and problem solving skills
- A strong passion for research
- Strong technical documentation skills
- Good interpersonal skills.
- Highly self-motivated and directed
- Keen attention to detail
- Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment
