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Enterprise Architect (Volunteer) - Pet Cancer Fund

Vancouver, British Columbia

About the Pet Cancer Fund

The Pet Cancer Fund is a Vancouver-based organization whose vision is to increase the life expectancy and improve the quality of life of pets diagnosed with cancer. Estimates suggest that 12M dogs and cats are developing cancer every year, roughly 6x the number of humans getting cancer yearly within North America.

We need to do more for our furry friends, and we're building a large team of distributed, animal-loving passionate volunteers to help them and their families. Our team requires an experienced senior-level Enterprise Architect as we set out to translate our business strategy into a technology architecture. That's where and how you can help us.

 

About the Position

We have an exciting opportunity for an IT leader to play a crucial role in defining, realizing, and leveraging the future technology vision to enable PCF's business for years to come. As our volunteer Enterprise Architect (EA), you are responsible for translating the Pet Cancer Fund business strategy into a technology architecture that ensures stable, reliable, resilient, and efficient service delivery to achieve PCF business objectives. The Enterprise Architect is also responsible for cataloging, developing, coordinating, communicating, maintaining, and enforcing overall enterprise architecture models, representations, initiatives, capabilities, and components to adequately perform the organization's business and technology activities. As Enterprise Architect, your efforts will ensure we provide efficient, customer-driven, affordable, and future-focused solutions.

 

 

Duties and Responsibilities

  • Assist IT leadership in translating PCF business strategy into technology strategy.

  • Define the target architectures, the roadmaps, and timescales for these architectures to ensure the most effective use of technology across PCF while delivering the required business outcomes.

  • Provide leadership in the definition, design, and interpretation of technical architecture artifacts taken from business requirements specifications or in direct discussions with the business to create technology architecture to meet business requirements.

  • Provide architectural leadership and enforcement for cross-program, and cross-project architecture strategies, opportunities, and problem resolution.

  • Participate with development and operations teams to deliver new services that bring value to PCF quickly and enable IT to operate, maintain and monitor with ease.

  • Ensure information security is built into enterprise architecture solutions to address all identified risks to assets within the organization and meet regulatory and legislative compliance while ensuring security solutions are leveraged.

  • Act as a trusted technology advisor with exceptional technical vision, knowledge, and judgment to introduce, explain, and recommend new technologies to support the priorities, goals, and objectives of the PCF strategic plan.

  • Reviewing and identifying weaknesses in systems and recommending changes as appropriate. 

  • Locate ways to reduce costs and IT expenses on a large-scale basis.

  • Put in place best-in-class architecture processes for designing large-scale and sophisticated technology systems.

  • Evangelize technology vision and strategy, solutions, and best practices with senior management and other groups within the company

  • Analyze industry best practices and market trends, determine their potential impact on the enterprise, and provide leadership for adapting to PCF business. Evaluate emerging technologies and suggest appropriate controls. Be responsive and decisive on adjusting architecture as PCF's requirements, market conditions, and technology evolve.

 

 

 

About You:

To make an immediate contribution, you will draw on your experience working with medium to large-sized organizations to understand the business direction and develop and implement an enterprise architecture roadmap that supports the business strategies. You must have an expert grasp on information architecture (concepts of data in motion and data at rest), as well as a good understanding of EA principles. You have:

 

  • Bachelor's degree and ten years of experience in IT infrastructure, including five years as an architect

  • Experience having worked as an architect in delivering complex solutions spanning multiple technologies 

  • Exposure to various aspects of architecture best practices: application development, data, security, infrastructure, and governance

  • Knowledge of emerging technologies, industry trends, enterprise applications, and architecture-related technical and business planning, healthy appreciation of multiple architecture domains

  • Ability to see big-picture designs from basic specifications

  • Leadership experience in developing, recommending, implementing, and managing technical architecture

  • Strong relationship management and collaboration skills with proven ability to work with and influence all functional units, senior/executive levels, and with vendors 

  • Demonstrated use of critical thinking skills to recognize assumptions, evaluate arguments, draw conclusions and proactively propose solutions

  • Demonstrated strong communication skills (verbal and written) to convey messages and explore diverse points of view at the executive level

  • Have an innovative mindset to improve operational efficiencies and ability to influence change, with a primary focus on business needs.    

  • Ability to research, learn, understand, and work quickly with new emerging technologies, methodologies, and solutions.

  • Able to work independently or as part of a team with a track record for meeting deadlines

 

What we provide you with

Volunteering with PCF in this critical role is a generational opportunity to contribute to building a best-in-class worldwide organization that will make a difference in millions of animals' lives in the decades to come. The challenges of building an umbrella cancer agency from inception will provide learnings while expanding your network of contacts that will be of assistance to your advancing private or non-profit career.

Footnotes:

  • This position works virtually from anywhere in Canada or the United States

  • Expectations regarding a time commitment are in the range of 6-8 hours per week on average

  • Additional time and flexibility will be necessary in the first months during the discovery and planning stages 

  • This volunteer position could potentially lead to other roles within the organization

 

Contact/How to apply

Please forward your resume/CV to ITEA.volunteer@petcancerfund.org

Pet Cancer Fund