Network Architect

Introduction:

We are seeking a skilled Network Designer – Senior / Network Architect to join our client in support of an existing vacancy.

Contract Period: 11-month contract (Extention /FTE)

Pay Rate: $80 per hour

Location: Toronto, ON

Location Type: Hybrid

Business Hours: Monday-Friday

Job Responsibilities:

• Responsible for creating architectures, roadmaps, and plans for the interconnection of multiple Agency products and services in the context of Provincial system integrations and overall Provincial strategic objects
• Provide technical expertise as required on any on-going network and network security initiatives
• Guides and influences portfolios and partners to align solutions to the Agency’s digital vision considering provincial, national, and international mandates
• Using an automation first approach, develops visionary solutions, as well as the tactical approaches to deliver them, for complex provincial and regional initiatives that meet customer needs and timelines, while adhering to overall enterprise architecture vision and organizational business plans
• Reduces current and future costs across local, provincial and national initiatives by identifying misalignments, duplication of efforts, and other opportunities for improvement in the architecture and escalates, proposes and drives to delivery, practical, efficient and reusable solutions
• Solves complex problems that span multiple assets and promote architecture patterns and principles to ensure reusability, and maintainability
• Develop and design the VNA Cloud connectivity in support of centralizing the digital imaging repositories for OCInet
• SASE / Zero Trust Architecture Expertise
• Ability to integrate WAN with modern security controls
• Familiarity with monitoring/observability platforms for WAN performance
• Understanding the complexities and feature of ISE (Cisco Identity Services Engine)
• Understanding of NDR (Network Detection and Response)
• Providing insights and recommendations based on network modernization and connectivity strategies across other industries (i.e. banking, retail, telecommunications, air lines etc.)
• Contributes to the architectural design for ONE Network (Next Gen) in preparation for network modernization and any procurements
• Architectural design for the VNA Cloud connectivity and migration strategy
• Design of ISE deployment including sample configurations deployment model for the different type of devices/users that will potentially connect
• Network automation initiatives that achieve measurable improvements in provisioning, configuration management, compliance validation, and operational support efficiency

Experience Requirements:

• 10+ years designing and operating large-scale enterprise and provider WAN environments
• Proven experience with MPLS-based architectures, including traffic engineering and QoS
• Strong understanding of routing protocols (BGP, OSPF, IS-IS)
• Demonstrated experience leading MPLS-to-SD-WAN transformation initiatives
• Telecom experience is an asset
• Experience delivering measurable business outcomes through network automation and AI-driven operations, including the automation of provisioning, configuration management, compliance validation, incident response, and operational reporting
• Experience designing greenfield WAN connectivity for cloud environments, with AWS (VPC, Transit Gateway, Direct Connect)
• Hybrid architecture design (on-prem + multi-cloud)
• Ability to produce high-quality architecture diagrams as well other design documents
• Strong problem solving and analytical skills to identify gaps and opportunities within domains, sectors and/or solutions, and drive improvement and efficiency; create strategies to mitigate various types of business, privacy, security, and financial risks; define and drive alternative solutions to meet business and technical problems across teams, portfolios and products; influence provincial project planning by identifying architecturally significant cross-project and system dependencies
• Strong communications skills, both oral and written, with an ability to engage with internal and external stakeholders to understand business needs: facilitate, negotiate, and communicate in support of internal and external partner engagement at local and provincial levels, and able to deliver presentation material, design documents and/or training material for both technical and non-technical audiences and drive to consensus between internal stakeholders with conflicting goals and priorities; communicate to internal and external executives, business domain stakeholders and technical staff
• Ability to stay current on business strategy and assess new trends with respect to the Agency’s business needs, and identify opportunities, impacts and transformations required to realize their value and assess their implications on the future state of specific products or portfolios
• Ability to stay abreast of provincial, national, and international business, technology, architecture and solution design trends
• Ability to understand and translate strategic, tactical and operational business requirements into effective architectures and designs
• Ability to interpret and apply IT privacy and security standards, principles, and regulations applicable to the health care sector (such as FIPPA, PHIPA) in development of architecture solutions
• Experience designing enterprise firewall architectures, with a preference for Check Point technologies, including Maestro, policy architecture, segmentation, high availability, and VPN design
• Experience designing secure hybrid network architectures connecting on-premises data centers with AWS and Azure cloud environments, including Direct Connect, ExpressRoute, Transit Gateway, routing, and enterprise connectivity patterns