Application Architect
Victoria and Vancouver, BCAbout PBC Solutions:
PBC Solutions has been recognized as one of British Columbia's Top Employers for 2025!
PBC Solutions Ltd. was created in 2022 as a wholly owned subsidiary of PBC Health Benefits Society (operating as Pacific Blue Cross), #1 health benefits provider in BC. Our mandate is to design, transform, and deliver the benefits and claims administration services offered by governments and other large organizations along with our consortium partners DXC Advanced Solutions, NTT DATA, and EY.
Since the spring of 2023, PBC Solutions administers and leads the transformation and digitization of Health Insurance BC Services (HIBC) on behalf of the BC Ministry of Health. HIBC Services administers medically-necessary insured doctor and hospital services through the Medical Services Plan (MSP) and drug coverage through the PharmaCare and Fair PharmaCare programs. In the future, the business will expand to additional public and private client work.
Position Summary
As a key member of the Information Management & Information Technology (IMIT)Application Services team, the Application Architect will:
- Provide strategic business and technology consulting to enable effective decision making on information technology investments.
- Apply industry and information technology expertise to conduct feasibility studies, develop proposals, and design solutions in support of existing services and business growth.
- Work collaboratively with others to ensure architecture is aligned with business requirements.
- Document, develop and maintain the high-level knowledge and design for the overall architecture of applications and security components for a particular solution.
- Plan, conduct, and supervise complex assignments; as well as design and apply new methods and procedures.
- Design, develop, evaluate, and integrate business services, operating systems, and databases.
- Lead multi-developer projects and providing supervision, guidance, expertise, and direction to all members of the team.
Primary Duties
Provides leadership, consulting, and strategic direction
- Provides direction and mentoring to staff in application development.
- Provides application and database design consulting expertise, direction, and assistance to other team members.
- Anticipates obstacles and thinks through the likely impact of the alternative proposals/solutions.
- Maintains awareness of industry trends and provides regular briefing updates to client management.
- Researches new features, software, and tools.
- Verifies stability, interoperability, portability, security, and scalability of application architecture.
- Keeps up-to-date on emerging application design and database architectures, technologies, and methodologies.
- Quickly assess multifaceted problems and complex situations.
- Recognizes patterns and distinguishes the root cause.
- Analyzes and interprets data and draws inferences.
- Creates applicable reference architecture and application design standards.
- Evaluates application development practices and creates development standards, policies, and procedures.
- Ensures application design and development policies are adhered to.
- Develops architecture and security strategy plans and roadmaps based on sound enterprise architecture practices.
- Maintains deep knowledge of the product architecture and of the technologies used.
- Maintains technical documentation of the solutions.
- Documents and develops in-depth knowledge of the application/sand security components.
- Facilitates collaboration with clients to transform requirements into effective solutions.
- Consults with and advises clients on business solutions.
- Works with internal and external partners to provide innovative solutions to business problems.
- Is accountable for architectural deliverables.
- Oversees developments and changes in the digital business to ensure they are adequately addressed in architecture and security strategy plans and updates artifacts.
- Reports updates proactively.
- Escalates issues in a timely manner.
- Ensures closure and resolution of the same.
- Builds checks in the team to ensure timely escalations.
- Identifies key and high-risk components.
- Works with leadership to assist with financial planning and management.
- Participates in planning of software maintenance releases.
- Assists in the preparation of documents in support of procurement of goods and services.
- Represents Information Technology at advisory and user group meetings.
- Other duties as assigned.
University degree in a related field, or a suitable combination of education and previous work experience. A related field includes the following:
- Degree in Computer Science or related field and 5 years of experience; OR
- Diploma in Computer Science and 7 years of experience; OR
- Certificate or program completion in Computer Science, or some course work in Computer Science and 12 years of experience.
- Extensive experience in technology-related field (developer, network admin, security analyst, architecture) and in delivering COTS-based technology solutions in a complex environment.
- Experience in the healthcare industry considered an asset.
- Experience managing and leading virtual, cross-functional teams, including defining requirements, developing designs and project plans, and delivering results.
- Experience in developing large-scale enterprise business solutions in a multiplatform environment.
- Experience in physical/implementation architectures to ensure scalable performance.
- Experience with architecture design concepts and techniques and the ability to communicate and evangelize those concepts to a broad-based team.
- Experience with Systems Development Life Cycle process.
- An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.
- Knowledge and understanding of Enterprise Architecture process and frameworks.
- Knowledge and technical expertise of current and emerging systems development methodologies, techniques, tools, and industry best practices in developing flexible and re-useable designs to support software environments and integration activities.
- Knowledge of the principles, practices and tools of project management.
- Act as an advocate for ensuring that the application architecture aligns with the overall enterprise architecture goals.
- Work with other IT groups, develop and maintain an application roadmap that provides reduced overall complexity and increased cost efficiency.
- Hands-on experience with business requirements analysis.
- Proven experience in components design and development.
- Ability to ensure a complete, accurate and valid inventory of all systems, infrastructure, and applications.
- Excellent understanding of high availability and secure architectures.
- Proven experience understanding Health industry challenges, like privacy, vulnerability, security, etc. is an asset.
- Proven ability to develop and maintain code using a variety of programming languages such as Delphi, C#, C++, Java, JavaScript, XML, XSLTis an asset.
- Experience in the development of Restful APls would be considered an asset.
- Knowledge of Natural, Cobol, Node.js, Angular, Docker, Elastic Search, Keycloak and UX would be considered an asset.
- Deep experience in database designing - primarily Oracle.
- Cloud hosting experience would be considered an asset.
- Leadership and direction setting through technical subject matter expertise.
- Ability to communicate concisely, both verbal and written at a level consistent with the audience's level of understanding.
- Ability to supervise a team of IT professionals.
- Customer Focus
- Integrity and Trust
- Ethics and Values
- Motivating Others
- Drive for Results
- Building Effective Teams
- Priority Setting
- Decision Quality
- Business Acumen
- Organizing
Travel / Work Location: PBC Solutions operates in Victoria and Vancouver with a hybrid work model. Candidates are preferably located in one of these locations to be able to attend occasional in-person meetings.
What's in it for you
We offer a robust health & dental benefits plan, with flexible options that will meet you and your family's needs. We also offer a Defined Benefit Pension Plan (PSPP), for all eligible employees, as well as various generous paid leaves.
We strive to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and employees feel empowered to freely participate and contribute regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, ability, education level, parental status, or socioeconomic status.
PBC Solutions is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all qualified candidates.
To request an accommodation in completing this application, pre-employment testing, interviewing or otherwise participating in the employee selection process, please direct your inquiries to hr@pbcsolutions.ca
Does this opportunity resonate with you?
Are you seeking a work environment that will challenge you, provide stretch opportunities, and support your success and growth? Then you've found your ideal work environment - Apply today please! We'd love to talk with you to explore this opportunity further with you.
Please note, if selected for this opportunity, you will be required to undergo a background check in accordance with PBC Solutions policies.
We sincerely thank all candidates for their interest, however only those selected to continue in the recruitment process will be contacted.
Please apply by April 25, 2025 by 4:00 PM PST. An eligibility list may be established for this position.
How we work
Our Guiding Principles
Honesty – We will be truthful. We will create a safe environment to communicate proactively, openly and with respect. We will be transparent and genuine with our interests.
Integrity – We will act consistently to do the right thing and ensure our words and actions align. Embracing opportunities and challenges, we will live our shared values and vision.
Reciprocity - We will strive for fair and balanced exchanges leveraging our unique strengths and resources, recognizing this requires an ongoing give and take. We will win and lose as one.
Autonomy – We respect and acknowledge the interests of each party. We trust each other to make decisions and act based on our diverse strengths to achieve our mutually desired outcomes.
Loyalty – We will be bold, brave, and committed to our relationship. As partners, we will advocate for one another, celebrate our successes, and have each other’s back through our challenges.
Equity – We commit to a balanced partnership. We will make decisions and act based on a fair assessment of capabilities, risks, constraints, and opportunities to achieve mutual success.
Our Intended Behaviours
Communication – We actively communicate in a timely, open, respectful, and responsive manner with the intent to gain understanding and find solutions.
Flexibility – We will be agile, adaptable, and creative to enable responsive service delivery and embrace challenges and change with an open-minded and positive attitude.
Perspective – We seek to understand interests, assumptions, actions, and diverse backgrounds by actively sharing and exploring all points of view.
Focus – We will use our Shared Vision as our North Star to evaluate, prioritize, and deliver successful results.
Trust & Confidence – We lead with trust. We consistently behave in ways that earn and inspire confidence by being credible, reliable, and transparent even when vulnerable.
Feedback – No surprises. We will maintain a strong relationship through timely, purposeful feedback in a safe, respectful, and collaborative environment.
Solution-oriented – We see possibilities rather than limitations. We use our diverse capabilities to develop options to resolve our challenges.