Senior Automation Solutions Specialist

Join Manulife’s Global Wealth and Asset Management (GWAM) Systems and Platform Services team as a Senior Automation Solutions Specialist. In this role, you will own and evolve enterprise batch automation workflows that support mission‑critical financial platforms used globally. Your work ensures production stability today while enabling smarter, scalable automation for the future. The Senior Automation & Power Platform Analyst is a senior individual-contributor role. Direct reports are not required. In addition to performing the responsibilities of the Automation & Power Platform Analyst role, the Senior Analyst operates with sustained broader scope, greater independence, deeper technical judgment, and influence across teams or business processes. The role combines accountable solution delivery, technical leadership, operational stewardship, governance, and capability development.

Have the skills and experience for the job? Learn more about it below!

 

Responsibilities

 

1.      Solution Ownership and Decision-Making

• Own complex automation, reporting, integration, and application initiatives from problem definition through implementation, stabilization, and support transition.
• Independently make day-to-day design, configuration, prioritization, and troubleshooting decisions within approved architecture, security, risk, budget, licensing, and change-control requirements.
• Evaluate options, document trade-offs, dependencies, downstream impacts, and support requirements, and recommend a preferred approach when decisions require broader approval.
• Escalate decisions involving material risk, policy exceptions, significant cost, enterprise architecture, security, privacy, or impacts beyond delegated authority.
• Maintain clear ownership, documentation, stakeholder alignment, and measurable outcomes throughout the solution lifecycle.

2.      Technical Depth and Platform Leadership

• Apply advanced knowledge of one or more relevant platforms, technologies, integrations, or business processes to solve complex problems.
• Provide sound technical guidance across Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, SQL, Copilot agents, Power BI gateways, APIs, and related integrations.
• Troubleshoot issues that exceed routine support capabilities and determine when specialist, platform-team, vendor, or Microsoft support is required.
• Resolve or help navigate platform, licensing, capacity, integration, and technical constraints while considering sustainability and total support effort.
• Evaluate emerging capabilities and recommend adoption only where there is a clear business need, appropriate control environment, and supportable operating model.

3.      Operational and Incident Leadership

• Coordinate the resolution of complex production, reporting, application, automation, and integration issues.
• Assess impact, establish a resolution approach, engage the appropriate teams, and maintain clear stakeholder communications.
• Exercise sound judgment during ambiguous or high-impact situations while following incident, problem, change, and escalation processes.
• Ensure corrective actions, root-cause findings, known errors, recovery procedures, and follow-up actions are documented and assigned.
• Convert recurring operational issues into sustainable improvements that reduce risk, manual effort, or future disruption.

4.      Governance, Risk, and Production Controls

• Apply established governance, security, privacy, accessibility, records, change-management, and production-support requirements throughout solution delivery.
• Ensure solutions include appropriate testing, approvals, deployment records, monitoring, recovery considerations, technical documentation, and support ownership.
• Identify and communicate material risks, control gaps, dependencies, and policy exceptions early enough for informed decisions.
• Contribute to practical standards, reusable patterns, design reviews, and lifecycle controls that improve reliability, scalability, and supportability.
• Protect sustainable operations by avoiding unsupported workarounds and by escalating unresolved control or compliance concerns through the appropriate channels.

5.      Organizational Influence and Business Improvement

• Lead or support initiatives that span multiple technologies, teams, business units, or stakeholder groups.
• Translate business needs into feasible technical approaches and align stakeholders on intended outcomes, constraints, responsibilities, and measures of success.
• Influence sound decisions through evidence, technical judgment, constructive challenge, and collaboration rather than formal authority.
• Identify and deliver improvements that produce reusable outcomes, reduce risk, improve reliability, or create measurable efficiency beyond a single task.
• Balance operational commitments with modernization opportunities and recommend changes based on sustainable business value.

6.      Capability Development and Knowledge Enablement

• Coach and support colleagues through knowledge sharing, collaborative problem-solving, design guidance, and constructive review.
• Create and maintain reusable documentation, standards, templates, troubleshooting guidance, and solution patterns that reduce dependence on individual knowledge.
• Help less experienced team members build judgment and independence rather than simply completing work on their behalf.
• Share lessons learned from delivery and incidents to strengthen team practices and prevent recurrence.
• Contribute to the team’s technical direction and collective capability without requiring formal people-management authority.

7.      Evidence of Sustained Senior-Level Performance

• Consistent ownership of work with broader scope, higher complexity, ambiguity, or cross-team dependencies.
• Decisions and recommendations that demonstrate sound judgment, balanced trade-offs, and appropriate escalation.
• Solutions or improvements that measurably reduce risk, manual effort, defects, recovery time, or operational disruption.
• Reusable assets, documented practices, standards, or patterns adopted beyond a single assignment.
• Sustainable production outcomes are supported by appropriate controls, documentation, monitoring, and support transition.
• Demonstrated enablement of colleagues through coaching, knowledge transfer, review, or improved team practices.
• Credible influence on technical or business decisions based on evidence and expertise, not visibility or reputation alone.
• Repeated delivery of reliable outcomes across multiple assignments rather than reliance on one high-profile success or emergency response. 

Qualifications

• Microsoft Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, and Power BI Gateways
• Copilot agents and approved AI-assisted solutions
• SQL and SharePoint
• Microsoft Teams and Outlook integrations
• Jira, ServiceNow, Power BI APIs, and approved enterprise data sources

Preferred / Additional Skills

• Basic scripting experience (e.g., JavaScript)
• SQL query development and data analysis
• SFTP and secure file‑transfer processes
• General understanding of server and network concepts
• Familiarity with ITIL, SDLC, and compliance‑controlled environments

When you join our team:

• We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want. 
• We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words. 
• As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact [email protected].

Hybrid