Director, Solution Architecture – Information Technology

Alberta Blue Cross® is an Alberta based organization dedicated to delivering exceptional customer experience and community leadership. We’re committed to providing the best health coverage to over 1.8 million members and take an active role in promoting wellness. We believe in what we do—and place trust in our employees to deliver our vision.

Working at Alberta Blue Cross® means having a career where you’ll be recognized for your contributions. We value diversity, encourage our team members to maintain a healthy work-life balance and provide opportunities for career growth.

OVERVIEW

We have an exciting opportunity for a Director of Solution Architecture to lead a team of 10+ Solution Architects at Alberta Blue Cross. Reporting to the Chief Architect, this senior leadership role combines strong people leadership with deep, practical technology solution architecture experience. The Director leads Solution Architecture practice and ensures initiatives have implementable, delivery-ready designs aligned to enterprise architecture direction, approved portfolio target states, and portfolio modernization roadmaps.

The Director translates approved architecture direction into technology solutions that delivery teams can build, integrate, operate, and evolve. The role brings credible technical leadership across applications, integration and APIs, enterprise data, cloud, security, identity, and infrastructure, balancing business outcomes with feasibility, performance, resiliency, privacy, cost, and maintainability. The Director guides complex design decisions and supports architecture through implementation and transition to operations.

Within the proposed Enterprise Architect target-state operating model, Enterprise Architects set enterprise direction and guardrails; Portfolio Architects own portfolio target architectures and modernization roadmaps; and Solution Architects design and guide implementation within those boundaries. The Director of Solution Architecture leads the people, capacity, technical quality, and operating practices of the Solution Architecture team. This role partners closely with Enterprise Architects, the Director of Enterprise Architecture, Domain Architects, and especially Portfolio Architects to connect delivery decisions to enterprise direction and portfolio roadmaps.

Success in this role is achieved by:

• •Leading, coaching, developing, and aligning a team of 10+ Solution Architects with clear priorities, accountability, and a collaborative technical culture. Most of the Solution Architects are already in place but additional resources may be required depending on demand. These Solution Architects are positioned as generalists who work across various technologies.
• •Applying deep technology solution architecture experience to produce practical, secure, resilient, and delivery-ready designs for complex initiatives.
• •Managing architecture demand, team capacity, assignments, and skills development across portfolios and delivery priorities.
• •Partnering with Portfolio Architects to align solution designs, dependencies, transition states, and technical feasibility with approved portfolio roadmaps.
• •Collaborating with Enterprise Architects, in their respective specializations , to apply enterprise guardrails, reuse enterprise capabilities and data, and resolve design risks through formal governance.

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

• •Lead and mature the Solution Architecture practice, including design methods, review practices, documentation, engagement models, and implementation support.
• •Lead a team of 10+ Solution Architects, including recruitment, onboarding, coaching, development planning, performance management, succession planning, and technical capability development.
• •Manage solution architecture demand and capacity; assign architects to initiatives with Portfolio Architects and delivery leaders, balancing priorities, complexity, dependencies, and skills.
• •Provide senior technical leadership for complex solutions across application, integration and API, enterprise data, cloud, security, identity, and infrastructure domains; challenge assumptions and guide design trade-offs.
• •Establish and monitor solution architecture measures for design readiness, review turnaround, guardrail alignment, reuse, technical risk, and implementation conformance.
• •Ensure solution designs leverage enterprise data and approved shared platforms, services, reference architectures, and patterns; address data ownership, quality, lineage, access, privacy, and integration with relevant domain specialists.
• •Oversee initiative-level architecture from discovery and options assessment through design, implementation support, and operational handover, maintaining traceability to business and non-functional requirements.
• •Partner closely with Portfolio Architects to translate portfolio target architectures, transition states, architecture runway, and modernization roadmaps into implementable solution designs; provide feasibility, dependency, and risk input for roadmap decisions.
• •Coach Solution Architects in system design, technology evaluation, integration, cloud adoption, secure design, cost trade-offs, and clear communication of technical decisions.
• •Collaborate with Enterprise Architects, the Director of Enterprise Architecture, and Domain Architects to interpret guardrails, obtain specialist input, and submit proposed patterns or exceptions through established governance.
• •Identify solution-level technical debt, integration constraints, implementation risks, duplication, and roadmap impacts; agree mitigation actions with portfolio, delivery, and platform stakeholders.
• •Work with business owners, engineering, delivery, security, privacy, data, platform, infrastructure and operations teams, and vendors to validate feasibility and guide implementation of approved designs.
• •Maintain transparent architecture decision records and escalate material exceptions, cross-portfolio conflicts, or changes to approved target states and sequencing; do not bypass enterprise or portfolio governance.

POSITION SCOPE

• •Reports to the Chief Architect and leads the Solution Architecture practice, with people leadership for a team of 10+ Solution Architects.
• •Provides technical leadership and design assurance for initiatives across business and technology portfolios, from early discovery through implementation and transition to operations.
• •Owns solution architecture practice methods, team capacity and assignments, design quality, solution-level deliverables, peer reviews, and practice effectiveness reporting.
• •Provides direct leadership, coaching, prioritization, performance management, and career development for Solution Architects; builds technical depth and leadership capability across the team.
• •Is accountable for the Solution Architecture capability and design assurance, not enterprise architecture policy, portfolio roadmap ownership, project delivery management, software engineering management, or production operations.

ACCOUNTABILITY BOUNDARIES AND ROLE CLARITY:

• •The Director of Solution Architecture reports to the Chief Architect and leads the Solution Architecture practice and a team of 10+ Solution Architects. The Director is accountable for people leadership, capacity planning, technical capability, design quality, and consistent solution architecture engagement across portfolios.
• •Enterprise Architects define enterprise-wide architectural direction, principles, standards, reference architectures, target states, and guardrails. The Director of Enterprise Architecture leads the EA function and its governance and domain architecture capability. The Director of Solution Architecture applies that direction to initiative-level design and contributes delivery insight, reusable patterns, and improvement proposals; the role does not assume enterprise policy ownership or leadership of Domain Architects.
• •Portfolio Architects own portfolio targe