A. Information:
Position Title: Architect, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence
Position #: ICSD99
Category: TBD
Derived From: NEW
Instruction/Support Area: Application Development
Division/Department: Information & Education Technology Services
Reports to: Associate Director, Applications Development
Positions Supervised: None, but may direct others work in projects.
Affiliation: CUPE, Local 15 – VMECW
Pay Grade: 28 (ICS = H)
Date Prepared: September 16, 2010
B. Position Summary:
Under general supervision of the Associate Director, the Architect evaluates requirements for, designs, develops, implements and maintains Data-warehousing and Reporting (DWR), Business Intelligence (BI) application software, Business Processes and Enterprise Data Maps/Models/Flows used throughout the College. Position provides support to the Project Leader & Database Administrator (DBA) with the installation, configuration, maintenance, and optimization of the college enterprise relational database (RDBMS) environment. As a senior member of the Application Development group, the incumbent develops applications and supports systems in accordance with software development lifecycle (SDLC) processes and procedures, guidelines, and best practices. Primarily involved with the support of staff, faculty, and student communities, the Architect also provides advanced technical support to end users and assistance to other project leaders, applications developers, and client groups within the department. May assign tasks and supervise on project over Programmer Analyst (a), (b), or (c)’s and other staff in junior positions. Incumbent may be asked to perform other duties as required.
C. Duties & Responsibilities:
1. Evaluates requirements for, designs, develops, implements and maintains Data-warehousing and Reporting (DWR), Business Intelligence (BI) application software, Business Processes and Enterprise Data Maps/Models/Flows used through the College in accordance with software development lifecycle (SDLC) processes (55%): Business Requirements
• Liaises with clients to define project scope. Provides technical expertise in formulating and organizing their ideas and business objectives during client liaisons.
Analysis
• Analyses and gains a detailed understanding of the business requirements.
• Ensures that any ambiguous, incomplete, or contradictory requirements are addressed and clarified.
• Plans the project with clear deliverables and timelines. • Regularly meets with clients for clarification and reviews.
• Shares and presents the final business requirements document to client and the development team.
• Obtains client sign-off the final business requirements document. Design and Specifications
• Designs the application or system modification based on the analysis of the business. • Illustrates and documents the design clearly and completely.
• Reviews the proposed design with the rest of the team to solicit opinions, ideas, suggestions, advice, and to promote sharing of knowledge.
• Writes detailed functional specifications that will be used for coding the application or the system modification.
• Writes the testing plan and specifications/scripts. Implementation (Coding)
• Writes code based on the design and specifications documentation.
• Throughout the coding phase, organize periodic team code review sessions to ensure optimization, best practice and standards compliance.
Integration
• Ensures that the new application or system modifications coexist as planned with existing applications or systems.
Testing
• Verifies that the application or the modification(s) satisfies the business requirements and produces the results specified by design and detailed specification documentation. Modifies coding until complete conformance is achieved.
• Reviews the final results with the client for sign-off. Deployment
• Plans and documents the release of the application or system modification(s) to the College production environment.
• Obtains the necessary sign-offs and approvals.
• Performs the deployment and verifies system(s) integrity. Liaises with other teams and team members as appropriate.
Maintenance
• Maintains and enhances the application or system modification(s) to cope with newly discovered problems/bugs or new requirements.
• Tracks and documents all modifications to the initial requirements, design, specifications, code, test, release, and operational documentation.
maintenance, and optimization of the college enterprise relational database management system (RDBMS) environment (20%):
Design & Development
• Participates in and/or conducts user requirements and readiness reviews.
• Analyzes and translates business requirements into logical database designs. Develops data infrastructure. Maps data models to existing design interfaces. Conducts
performance tuning and optimization.
• Leads and/or provides subject matter expertise in production databases environments. • Contributes to the development of enterprise data architecture, policies, standards and
guidelines related to the system wide integration of data.
Implementation
• Acts as the liaison with third party vendors and internal operations teams for
development and implementation in accordance with the departmental strategic plans. • Works with the operations group to configure relevant hardware and software, install
new versions or patches to DBMS software or other software/systems related to DBMS administration and optimization.
• Communicates and maintains the data architecture and data models at the conceptual, logical, and physical levels. Presents data and database models to the department teams and other functional users.
• Works closely with project leaders, application developers, and the operations group as needed to complete application fail-over and recovery strategy.
Maintenance, Optimization, and Monitoring
• Interfaces with the development teams and the operations group to continuously optimize and troubleshoot database systems as required in a RDBMS environment. • Performs database management activities, including but not limited to, device and
storage allocations, monitoring, security, integrity checks, re-organizations, capacity planning, backups/restores and scripting.
• Provides database security administration, which includes but is not limited to, adding/removing users, administering quotas, auditing, and monitoring and correcting security breaches.
• Provides technical support to end users and assistance to other project leaders, applications developers, and client groups within the department.
3. Engages in continual training and professional development (10%):
• Maintains currency in DWR, DBMS, BI, and software industry by continually monitoring trends and evolution of tools, techniques, methodologies and standards, and shares this information with team.
• Participates in conferences, user and special interest groups meetings, online research and personal reading to monitor trends. Shares information with the team via
discussions, brainstorming, presentations and other type of activities.
• Based on these observations and findings, makes suggestions and recommendations to the development team to improve and advance DWR, RDBMS, BI, and software
development and system integration within the College.
• Suggests, advises, and engages in continuous personal and team training courses and programs to further his/her personal development and the knowledge and performance of the team.
5. Provides backup to Project Leaders and senior programmers in other client groups (5%).
6. Performs other related duties and/or projects as required (5%). D. Organization Chart:
E. Qualifications Required: Education & Experience
• Bachelor Degree from a recognized institution in computer systems, computing science, or equivalent information technology discipline.
• Additional specialized industry training of up to one year in programming languages and software development techniques (e.g., Java, SQL, Oracle, design methodology, project management). Oracle, MS-SQL, Cognos, QlikView development and administration
professional certifications (Developer, Professional, and/or Master) are preferred. Others may be considered.
• A minimum of six (6+) years of recent related experience in designing, developing, integrating, and supporting enterprise data-warehouse, business intelligence applications, and reporting applications in an IT environment. Experience should include at least: 6 years of software development, 6 years of system design, 4 years of business analysis and project management, and 2 years in a team leadership role,
• Extensive experience in enterprise database management system (RDBMS),
Data-Warehousing (DWR), and Business Intelligence (BI) applications installation, configuration, administration, and optimization.
• An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered. Technical Requirements
• Expert knowledge in designing, developing, integrating, and supporting enterprise data-warehouse and reporting applications (Operational Data Stores, Enterprise Data-Warehouses, ETL tools, Cognos, QlikView).
• Expert knowledge in enterprise relational database programming (Oracle, MS-SQL DBMS and its development tool suite).
• Expert knowledge in enterprise relational database systems installation, configuration, administration, and optimization (Oracle DBMS, MS-SQL).
• Expert knowledge in data mapping and modeling (ERD, UML) • Expert knowledge in 3rd
Generation Programming Languages (C++, Java, SQL, scripting languages such as PERL, CGI, Python), and visual programming tools (4th and 5th Generation).
environments.
• Intermediate knowledge of Software Oriented Architecture (SOA) applications design and development.
• Intermediate knowledge of Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Implementation and Administration. • Intermediate knowledge of networking techniques, protocols, standards, server operations,
and other inter-networking concepts.
Skills & Abilities
• Effective communication skills, verbally and written, in English.
• Excel at explaining and demonstrating complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Ability to liaise with clients and assist them in the definition and articulation of their business requirements.
• Ability to produce clear, concise, and easy to read design and specifications documentation. • Ability to develop efficient, optimized, sustainable, well documented, and “elegant” code. • Ability to “think outside the box”, re-evaluate, and improve development techniques for
software development and programming.
• Effectively analyze, understand, and evaluate the impact of modifications or enhancements. • Provide advice and support to users on the use and operation of application systems. • Organize and manage time to meet deadlines.
• Effectively contribute to the overall improvement of department services and operations, team spirit, and morale.
• Work both independently and as a member of a committee or team. • Work harmoniously with others.
• Aptitude to learn new languages, methodologies, tools and technologies for software development and programming.
• Perform duties to meet established policies, practices and standards. F. Supervisor’s Approval:
I agree that the above accurately describes the duties and responsibilities of this position.
Signature: _______________________________ Date:________________________
(Supervisor, Pierre-Andre Santin) G. Incumbent Signature:
By signing below, I am acknowledging that I have read and understood the duties and responsibilities of this position (Sections B & C).
Signature: _______________________________ Date:________________________ (Incumbent, xxxxxxx)
H. Human Resources Approval:
Signature: _______________________________ Date:________________________ (HR Analyst, Wendy Ly)
