Senior Data Architect
Job ID: 9101
Working Business Language: This role is considered a head-office role and will be required to communicate with internal stakeholders across Canada where the primary business language utilized is English.
Salary: At Wawanesa, salary is only one component of a holistic, comprehensive and competitive offering that we provide to our employees. In addition to salary, full-time and part-time permanent employees are eligible for an annual bonus plan, leave of absence top-up programs and provided with generous vacation time, personal days, premium free benefits and pension plan.
The salary offered for this role is determined with consideration to various factors, including but not limited to: your work location, local labour market conditions, external market salary data, internal pay equity and the knowledge, skills, experience and anticipated proficiency in the role. The salary offered is estimated to be within the following range: $150, 000 - $175, 000. Candidates with salary expectations outside of the range are still encouraged to apply.
About Us
At Wawanesa, we're proud to offer a hybrid work environment that offers flexibility to our employees in balancing in-office (2 days per week OR 15 hours per week in a Wawanesa office) and remote work. You may work from any of the following locations: Winnipeg, MB; Wawanesa, MB; Vancouver, BC; Calgary, AB; Edmonton, AB; Lethbridge, AB; Toronto, ON; Kitchener, ON; Thunder Bay, ON; Ottawa, ON; Montreal, QC; Moncton, NB; Dartmouth; NS
The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company ("Wawanesa Mutual"), founded in 1896, is one of Canada's largest mutual insurers, with over $3.5 billion in annual revenue and assets of $10 billion (CAD). Wawanesa Mutual, with its National Headquarters in Winnipeg, is the parent company of Wawanesa Life, which provides life insurance products and services throughout Canada, and Western Financial Group, which distributes personal and business insurance across Canada. Wawanesa proudly serves more than 1.7 million members in Canada, and we are home to more than 3,600 employees distributed across the Canadian regions and communities where we operate. We give back to organizations that strengthen communities, donating more than $3.5 million annually to charitable organizations, including over $2 million annually in support of people on the front lines of climate change. To learn more visit wawanesa.com.
We are currently looking for dedicated, driven, and enthusiastic individuals who thrive in an environment that welcomes change and are looking for an opportunity for diverse experience and advancement on a growing team.
Job Overview
Under minimal supervision, this Senior Data Architect role contributes to Wawanesa's success by leading the overall design and evolution of Wawanesa's enterprise data architecture. This role focuses primarily on enterprise information requirements: developing data architecture designs, frameworks, standards, principles, technical specifications, roadmaps, and best practices to grow and evolve the enterprise data management practice across the organization. This is a hands-on role, requiring the ability and interest to dive in, actively designing solutions and performing analysis and development as needed.
Job Responsibilities
- Provide leadership and expert guidance on data management practices across operational teams and technology projects by working collaboratively with the Data Management, Information Technology, Analytics, and Business teams.
- Establish, document, and evangelize enterprise data architecture principles, frameworks, and best practices. Develop, maintain, and socialize a scalable data architecture roadmap aligned with enterprise objectives and evolving technology trends.
- Translate business strategy and requirements into a scalable, flexible, and sustainable enterprise data architecture. Design enterprise data models, data storage solutions, integration patterns, and standardized vocabularies (ontologies and taxonomies) to drive consistency, interoperability, and reusability of information assets across the enterprise.
- Maintain and evolve a metadata management and repository strategy to catalog and govern enterprise data and information architecture artifacts for improved discoverability, lineage, and governance.
- Participate in the definition of technical standards and guidelines related to data and information use, security, access and governance including defining accountabilities in support of data quality mandates.
- Contribute to the evolution of data governance process and controls ensuring compliance with enterprise data architecture principles and standards.
- Review and guide new development initiatives to ensure alignment with enterprise data architecture standards and promote standardization, reuse and architectural consistency across projects.
- Ensure the enterprise data architecture is fully aligned with broader enterprise architecture standards, principles and roadmap to support cohesive and future-ready technology ecosystems.
- Continuously monitor emerging technologies, industry trends, and standards to assess their relevance and potential impact. Integrate innovations into the enterprise data architecture roadmap to drive agility, modernization, and competitive advantage.
- Apply forward-thinking approaches to data architecture, leveraging both existing capabilities and emerging methods. Identify opportunities to enhance organizational performance, data-driven decision making, and value delivery. processes, products, services, and technologies.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, analytical discipline, or a related study, or equivalent experience.
- A minimum of 10 years of Information Services/Information Technology experience and five years of data architecture experience.
- Experience using Kimball Star Data Warehousing design.
- Experience with and understanding of various data storage (relational databases, NoSQL, data lakes etc.), processing paradigms (ETL, streaming, CDC, etc.), technologies and vendors.
- Knowledgeable in the design and construction of information architectures that enable well-integrated transactional, collaborative and analytical systems.
- Expert data/information modeling skills at the enterprise level.
- Understanding of taxonomies and ontologies, as well as the challenges of applying structured techniques (data modeling) to less structured sources.
- Experience creating information policy to support effective design of information systems and use of information across the enterprise.
- Experience with a variety of business intelligence and data warehousing development techniques.
- Experience designing and implementing enterprise solutions using commercial off the shelf products.
- Exceptional analytical, conceptual, and problem-solving skills with a proven ability to create original concepts/theories and manage and prioritize a business workload across multiple concurrent initiatives.
- Strong communication, conflict management and negotiation skills with the ability to build trust and secure buy-in from stakeholders at all levels of an organization, speaking confidently to business and technical resources alike. Capable of clearly explaining the pros, cons and long-term impacts of architectural decisions.
- Proven Ability to lead others to embrace, perform effectively, and adapt quickly to change.
- Proven ability to make excellent, well justified decisions in complex, high pressure environments by applying strong business acumen and focusing on key objectives. Skilled at quickly assessing situations, identifying viable options, and driving effective action.
- Able to coach and mentor others to enhance their decision-making capabilities and execution effectiveness.
- Knowledge of and experience in the insurance industry is considered an asset.
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Wawanesa is proud to be one of Manitoba's Top Employers, a Kincentric Best Employer in Canada and a Forbes Best Employer in Canada recognizing an exceptional place to work!
Diversity Equity, Inclusion & Belonging
Wawanesa is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to fostering a diverse workforce that is equitable and inclusive for all. Wawanesa provides equal employment opportunity to all employees and applicants without regard to an individual's protected status: race/ethnicity, colour, religion, creed, sex or gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family or marital status, pregnancy/childbirth or related conditions, national origin, disability, military or veteran status, or any other protected status. Disability or medical-related accommodations are available upon request throughout all aspects of the recruitment and selection process. Candidates requiring reasonable accommodations may contact, in confidence, jobs@wawanesa.com.
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