Senior Architect Permanent

At Ontario Health, we are committed to developing a strong organizational culture that connects and inspires all team members across the province. Our vision is that together, we will be a leader in health and wellness for all. Our mission is to connect the health system to drive improved and equitable health outcomes, experiences and value. How we work together is reflected through our five values: integrity, inspiration, tenacity, humility and care.

What Ontario Health offers:   

Achieving your career goals is a priority to us. Benefits of working at Ontario Health may include the following based on employment type:  

• Fully paid medical, dental and vision coverage from your first day
• Health care spending account
• Premium defined benefit pension plan
• 3 personal days and 2 float days annually
• Individual contributors start at 3 weeks’ vacation, and 4 weeks at 2 yrs.
• Career development opportunities
• A collaborative values-based team culture
• Wellness programs
• A hybrid working model
• Participation in Communities of Inclusion 

Want to make a difference in your career?  Consider this opportunity.   

The Senior Architect will be responsible for supporting the portfolio’s vision to re-imagine our digital and virtual assets to create a better, more connected healthcare system, along with evolving and encouraging a citizen-centered, digital-first mindset. The Senior Architect will support the Digital Excellence in Health (DxH) digital and transformation strategy, roadmap and change management, working closely with stakeholders and teams, to successfully IT solutions to deliver the business outcomes across a complex stakeholder landscape. The Senior Architect will support the design of DxH’s business and operating models to deliver on its strategic vision and building transformation capabilities to enable transition.

The Senior Architect focuses on one or more digital health assets and supports all aspects of the development and product life cycle and is a subject matter expert within those digital health assets or healthcare domains. They have broad knowledge across many domains of the organization and are a trusted partner within DxH portfolio and across other portfolios supporting program partners with their strategic priorities. The Senior Architect leads large complex initiatives ensuring alignment between the strategies, operating models and operational initiatives. The Senior Architect contributes, advocates for, and ensures alignment of individual solution/domain architecture(s) to Ontario Health’s enterprise architecture vision.

Here is what you will be doing:   

• Responsible for creating architectures, roadmaps, and plans for the interconnection of multiple OH products and services within the provincial vision.
• Acts as subject matter expert to internal stakeholders in specialized areas such as laboratories, digital identity, data, etc.
• Acts as single point of contact for OH partners to support understanding of the use and architecture of specific OH products and services.
• Maintains and evolves relationships with external organizations and communities of practice with respect to specific subject areas within the Health System.
• Guides and influences product owners and vendor partners to align solutions to Ontario Health’s digital vision.
• Collaborates with, guides and mentors junior and peer architects by elevating their breadth and scope of knowledge of solution architecture, the Healthcare domain, architecture patterns and best practices, and supporting the practice of architecture and the development of solution architecture models and documentation.
• Understands and translates tactical and operational business requirements into effective architectures and designs.
• Resolves business rules and information and application conflicts involving shared services, applications, and resources.
• Contributes to the development of architecture processes, procedures, templates, etc. and providing assistance  to others.
• Works with product management to support roadmaps and architectural alignment to ensure the delivery of project and product objectives.
• Maintains architecture service quality accountability at the product and project level for assigned work.
• Leads project work in a domain, communicating and guiding consumers and project from assets, business and technical aspects.
• Develops visionary solutions, as well as the tactical approaches to deliver them, for product/portfolio initiatives that meet customer needs and timelines, while adhering to overall enterprise architecture vision and organizational business plans.
• Reduces current and future costs across product/portfolio initiatives by identifying misalignments, duplication of efforts, and other opportunities for improvement in the architecture: escalates, proposes and drives to delivery, practical, efficient and reusable solutions.
• Consults on, advises and influences product/portfolio project planning by identifying architecturally significant cross-project and system dependencies to ensure target delivery dates are realistic and meet product/portfolio expectations.
• Reduces duplication of effort, cost overruns and impacts on timeline by identifying, championing and influencing strategic and tactical business  and  IT opportunities within a product/portfolio; leads product/portfolio IT transformation initiatives  to their realization; maximizes outcomes by balancing cost, quality and time to production.
• Assesses and identifies cross-product gaps and opportunities for reuse and/or alignment, and advocates for solutions to address gaps with product owners to maximize reuse and alignment.
• Builds sustainable, trusted relationships with stakeholders, partners, colleagues and superiors.
• Works with internal and external (regional, provincial) stakeholders to understand business needs across OH and their impact to specific products/portfolios.
• Assists clients in defining non-functional requirements such as application and solution management, sharing and re-use.
• Identifies and escalates issues and works with clients to ensure adherence to application management and quality standards.
• Provides thought leadership across program areas.
• Guides and influences project team to align and build with an eye to OH’s architectural vision and principles.
• Contributes to roadmaps and product vision. Provides alternative solutions and options for business and technical challenges. Identifies dependencies in project/product deliverables and provides guidance for planning and delivery.
• Occasionally engages outside of OH with integration partners (e.g., hospitals).
• Leads change within the domain/product.
• Makes decisions where results have a major impact across the organization requiring sophisticated solutions and long-term correction.
• Some additional work in late hours may be required to meet deadlines.

Here is what you will need to be successful:   

Education and Experience:  

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree, or equivalent working experience in Information Technology is required.
• 3 – 5 years in an IT environment as an Architect on product/service/technology/health care domain(s).
• Experience as a subject matter expert involved in day-to-day technical and business work, representing asset(s) in discussions for broader solutions, and guiding integration with/use of system/ domain is an asset.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Understanding of Ontario Health business, goals, and mandate and how it applies to the provincial health care system.
• Knowledge of Ontario Health, and the broader Ontario health care sector IT systems to ensure product dependencies are identified and managed.
• Knowledge of Architectural disciplines such as Business, Application, Information, Infrastructure, Privacy and/or Security.
• Knowledge of service management, control, and architecture frameworks such as ITIL, PMBOK, COBIT, Zachman, TOGAF, Rational, and/or Agile.
• Knowledge of Legislative boundaries and privacy regulations unique to Ontario and Canada.
• Knowledge of complex geographical, multi-lingual and multi-equity considerations specific to Ontario.
• Knowledge of Patient safety considerations.
• Knowledge of Public Sector procurement legislation, policies, and practices.
• Problem solving and analytical skills to create strategies to mitigate various types of business, privacy, security, and financial risks; identify gaps and opportunities within domains, sectors and/or solutions, and drive improvement and efficiency.
• Strong communication skills to facilitate, negotiate, and communicate, both orally and in writing, in support of internal and external partner engagement at the local, provincial level delivering presentation material, designing documents and/or training material for both technical and non-technical audiences and to drive to consensus between internal stakeholders with conflicting goals and priorities.
• Ability to understand disparate health IT systems’ place in the Health System and compare and contrast solutions and patterns to recommend/propose efficient and effective architectures and solutions.
• Ability to  work at a high level of autonomy in setting objectives based on minimal direction from management.
• Ability to collaborate with internal peers and local programs to ensure alignment of architecture practices, patterns, and solutions.
• Ability to stay current on business strategy and assess new trends with respect to Ontario Health’s business needs, and identify opportunities, impacts and transformations required to realize their value and assess their implications on the future state of specific products or portfolios.
• Ability to stay abreast of provincial, national and international business, technology, architecture and solution design trends.
• Ability to work with internal and external (regional, provincial, national, international) stakeholders to understand business needs across OH and trends in IT across the broader health system as they relate to specific products or portfolios.
• Business focused and technically savvy with the ability to communicate to internal and external executives, business domain stakeholders and technical staff alike to build consensus and resolve both business and technical conflicts.
• Ability to understand and translate strategic, tactical, and operational business requirements into effective architectures and designs.
• Ability to interpret and apply IT privacy and security standards, principles and regulations applicable to the health care sector (such as FIPPA, PHIPA) in development of architecture solutions.
• Ability to interpret and apply health information management principles to digital health care systems, and to leverage health care interoperability standards such as HL7 V2, or FHIR in development of architecture solutions.
• Ability to work on, prioritize and deliver multiple projects/initiatives according to agreed-upon timelines amidst constantly changing priorities.
• Ability to define requirements for, execute, and participate in public sector fair procurement processes.
• Ability to make decisions where results have a major impact across the organization.
• Emotional intelligence is required within product/project teams.

Employment Type:   Permanent Full-time

Salary Band:   6

Location: Ontario (currently hybrid; subject to change)

External Application Deadline Date: December 20, 2024