Solution Architect

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is the statutory body responsible for regulating Ontario’s capital markets in accordance with the mandate established in the provincial Securities Act and the Commodity Futures Act. The mandate of the OSC is to provide protection to investors from unfair, improper or fraudulent practices, to foster fair, efficient and competitive capital markets and confidence in the capital markets, to foster capital formation, and to contribute to the stability of the financial system and the reduction of systemic risk. This mandate is performed through policy, operational, and enforcement activities. The OSC also contributes to national and global securities regulation development.

We offer a diverse, fair, and flexible work environment and take pride in our challenging and rewarding work.

The CSA operates, through various agreements, a number of shared information technology systems that serve securities regulatory purposes and functions. These CSA National Systems are the primary interface between regulated entities and each provincial and territorial regulator. In addition, many of the systems provide information to other market participants including institutional investors and the public.
The operations, maintenance, and enhancement of the CSA National Systems are managed by the CSA IT Systems Office which is co-located within the premises of the Ontario Securities Commission. 

Summary

Reporting to the Manager, Solution Architecture, the Solution Architect role is responsible for providing technical leadership and leading the design of business critical, integrated applications currently managed by Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) IT Systems Office.

The Solutions Architect plays a key role in the EA’s governance and process, leading the alignment between complex business requirements and modern technology stacks. As a subject matter expert in architectural frameworks and system integration, they provide technical leadership and strategic advice to development teams, business owners, and cross-functional project members to ensure architectural integrity, reduce technical debt, and mitigate integration risks across the CSA. By assessing cross-functional impacts and staying abreast of leading industry practices, the Solutions Architect identifies opportunities for modernization and process improvement, ensuring the delivery of seamless, reliable, and consistent solutions for all end users.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

Provides leadership and in-depth technical expertise in the design and development of CSA National systems solution architecture. Works with CSA ITSO management, current vendors and CSA jurisdictions technical teams to ensure applications meet current and future requirements and cross-jurisdictional stakeholder business needs.

Governance and Architecture

• Working with the Manager, Solution Architecture, defines and maintains the target architecture, ensuring all solutions align with the CSA’s Enterprise Architecture (EA) strategy and long-term business goals.
• Leads the design and implementation of standardized applications for multi-jurisdictional requirements, ensuring system support capabilities are calibrated for high-quality output.
• Defines patterns for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Cloud-native services, specifically managing the complexity of components running across cloud, on-premise, and national system environments.
• Oversees and maintains the Solution Architecture repository, ensuring all Application, Data, and Integration artifacts are maintained to reflect the current and future state.

Compliance and Quality Assurance

• Enforces architectural policies and standards to ensure data and services are consistently defined and managed across all CSA systems.
• Manages and reviews change requests to assess design impacts on system development strategies, ensuring no compromise to the architectural integrity.
• Oversees the production of design-phase deliverables (technical designs, process flows, data mappings) to ensure they meet established governance frameworks.

Innovation and Strategic Planning

• Leverages AI and automation technologies to improve solution design quality, streamline development processes, enhance code analysis, and support architectural modelling and decision making.
• Performs assessments of new product and solutions, analyzing technical feasibility, architectural alignment, integration impacts, and security considerations, and provides accurate estimations of effort, complexity, and delivery risks.
• Identifies and integrates new technology capabilities that enhance stakeholder functionality and modernize legacy business processes.

Leadership and Advisory

• Contributes to the Technology and EA portfolio roadmaps, providing expert input to identify and prioritize high-value initiatives.
• Provides guidance and subject matter expertise to development teams and business owners throughout the project lifecycle.
• Provide architectural oversight and advisory support to Operations, ensuring long-term system stability and supportability.

Stakeholder and Vendor Management

• Acts as the architectural liaison between EA team, jurisdiction technical teams and business stakeholders to ensure technical solutions solve real-world business problems.
• Manages the technical relationship with external vendors, ensuring their deliverables meet CSA architectural specifications, managing the integration of COTS products and ensure architecture alignment.

Qualifications

• University degree education, preferably specializing in Information Systems or Engineering
• 10 or more years of professional experience in Information Technology, with 5 or more of those years in solution architecture planning, design, development, implementation and maintenance.
• Proven ability to translate complex business requirements into comprehensive end‑to‑end logical architectures, evaluating solution options to provide well-reasoned recommendations, utilizing layered design (presentation, application, domain, data) and UML modeling to ensure scalability, security, and alignment with enterprise standards.
• Lead design activities, reviewing architectural artifacts while coaching, and mentoring development teams on design, architectural patterns best practices to elevate overall team capability.
• Strong ability to troubleshoot complex performance issues across application, integration, and data layers, using systematic diagnostic methods to identify root causes and tune algorithms for computational efficiency to optimize system behavior.
• Able to assess new product features and vendor‑proposed solutions for feasibility, architectural impact, risk, security and providing accurate effort and complexity estimations.
• Experienced in reverse‑engineering existing codebases (Java, Python, front‑end frameworks, legacy components) to understand system logic, uncover defects, and design effective remediation or modernization approaches.
• Proficiency in Java/J2EE, Spring, API, Python, and modern Front-end frameworks (Angular, Node.js), with experience reverse-engineer existing codebases (Java/Python) to modernize legacy components and remediate defects utilizing Cloud environments (Azure preferred) using Kubernetes or Apache Spark.
• Professional certifications in Agile, or other related disciplines are desired

Behaviours/Attributes

• Ability to work effectively with a diverse set of independent organizations and individuals to drive consensus and alignment
• Able to bridge the gap between technology architecture and complex business needs, ensuring technical directions support organizational functions and processes.
• Assumes full accountability for deliverables and timelines while maintaining high standards of conscientiousness.
• Able to work with high autonomy within a team environment, making sound decisions based on expert knowledge and professional judgment.
• Expert ability to convey complex technical concepts in business terms, effectively articulating issues to senior management and decision-makers.
• Able to balance technical excellence with business objectives, cost, and time-to-delivery, ensuring risks are minimized without stalling progress.
• Proactively identifies bottlenecks and provides innovative, alternative solutions through deep critical thinking and situational analysis.
• Uses a variety of methods and styles to suit different audiences, ensuring clarity and confidence in the decision-making process.
• Demonstrated effective facilitation skills to influence outcomes that benefit all parties
• Clear and concise communication skills, both oral and written

Grow your career and make a difference working at the OSC.

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We thank all applicants for their interest in the Ontario Securities Commission. We will contact those selected for an interview.

The OSC is committed to diversity and providing an inclusive workplace and providing accommodation in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the Human Rights Code. It is our priority to ensure employment opportunities are visible and barrier-free to all under-represented groups including but not limited to, Indigenous, Black and racialized groups, people with disabilities, women and people from the 2SLGBTQI+ community, to achieve an employee demographic profile reflective of the demographic profile of Ontarians.

The OSC is a proud partner with the following organizations: Ascend Canada, BlackNorth Initiative, Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, and Pride at Work Canada

If you require an accommodation during the recruitment process, please let us know by contacting our confidential inbox [email protected].  
 

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