Platform Solution Architect

Our vision for the future is based on the idea that transforming financial lives starts by giving our people the freedom to transform their own. We have a flexible work environment, and fluid career paths. We not only encourage but celebrate internal mobility. We also recognize the importance of purpose, well-being, and work-life balance. Within Empower and our communities, we work hard to create a welcoming and inclusive environment, and our associates dedicate thousands of hours to volunteering for causes that matter most to them.

Chart your own path and grow your career while helping more customers achieve financial freedom. Empower Yourself.

We are looking for a Platform Architect to provide strategic product and architecture leadership for our Google Apigee and Confluent Kafka platforms.

This role combines the strategic ownership of a Product Owner with the technical depth and decision-making authority of a Solutions Architect. You will be accountable for defining the long-term vision, roadmap, architecture, and technology direction of two critical enterprise platforms that enable API and event-driven integration across Canada Life.

As the senior technical authority for these platforms, you will guide major technology decisions, evaluate emerging capabilities, influence vendor roadmaps, and ensure our platforms continue to evolve in support of business growth, modernization, security, resilience, and operational excellence.

You will act as a trusted advisor to technology leaders, architects, engineers, and business stakeholders while maintaining deep hands-on knowledge of Google Apigee, Confluent Kafka, and the broader integration ecosystem.

What you will do

• Define and own the long-term product vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Google Apigee and Confluent Kafka platforms.
• Drive platform investment decisions by balancing business priorities, architecture objectives, platform health, risk, operational sustainability, and cost efficiency.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for the platforms, providing direction on architecture, design standards, patterns, guardrails, and technology adoption.
• Evaluate emerging capabilities, perform technical discovery, and lead proof-of-concept initiatives to determine the value of new platform features and services.
• Define which platform capabilities should be enabled, promoted, standardized, restricted, or retired across the organization.
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, SRE, Operations, and delivery teams to ensure platform direction aligns with enterprise standards and future needs.
• Develop and maintain reference architectures, technology standards, best practices, and reusable integration patterns.
• Guide major platform upgrades, migrations, modernization initiatives, and lifecycle management activities.
• Build and maintain strategic relationships with Google and Confluent, participating in roadmap discussions, executive briefings, escalation management, and strategic planning activities.
• Advocate for Canada Life's requirements by communicating capability gaps, business challenges, and future needs to influence vendor product roadmaps.
• Mentor technical leads, engineers, and platform specialists while fostering technical excellence across the organization.
• Communicate platform strategy, risks, opportunities, and recommendations to both technical and executive audiences.

What you will bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 10+ years of progressive experience in a large enterprise technology environment.
• Experience serving in solution architecture, platform architecture, technical product ownership, principal engineering, or senior technical leadership roles.
• Demonstrated success defining technology roadmaps and driving strategic platform evolution.
• Experience evaluating emerging technologies and translating technical opportunities into business value.
• Strong understanding of enterprise architecture principles, cloud-native technologies, DevOps practices, security controls, and modern software delivery models.
• Experience influencing senior stakeholders and driving alignment across multiple teams and business areas.
• Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, make informed decisions, and provide strategic direction in complex environments.
• Experience building and maintaining executive-level vendor relationships and managing strategic technology partnerships.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts into meaningful business outcomes.

Technical Skillsets

• Deep expertise with Google Apigee, API management platforms, and modern API security architectures.
• Deep expertise with Confluent Kafka and event-driven architecture principles.
• Strong understanding of API lifecycle management, authentication, authorization, traffic management, governance, and developer enablement.
• Strong understanding of Kafka architecture, topic design, schema governance, replication, resiliency, and operational best practices.
• Expertise in enterprise architecture, solution architecture, and distributed systems design.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native technologies, networking, security architecture, and platform engineering practices.
• Experience developing technology roadmaps, platform strategies, capability assessments, and investment plans.
• Experience conducting proof-of-concept initiatives and technology evaluations to support platform strategy and adoption decisions.
• Demonstrated ability to establish architecture standards, reusable patterns, governance models, and technical guardrails.
• Experience managing strategic technology vendors and influencing external product roadmaps.
• Strong understanding of technology risk, security controls, compliance requirements, and enterprise governance practices

We are an equal opportunity employer with a commitment to diversity.  All individuals, regardless of personal characteristics, are encouraged to apply.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, pregnancy, religion, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other status protected by applicable state or local law.