The Passenger Facing Technology Program (PFT) will enhance and expand data, tools, and services available for transit riders, integrating innovative technologies and approaches to improve regional mobility. The Solution Architect will lead this program from IT, providing technical oversight and guidance across multiple projects, ensuring that designs are technically correct and fit the business and passenger needs by:

• Working closely with vendors to ensure solutions conform to approved architecture and design.

• Surfacing technical risks in delivered code or products.

• Provide guidance on change control.

• Ensuring correctness and completeness of vendor provided components and documentation.

The Solution Architect must navigate between technical and business and delivery teams to assess changing conditions; develop appropriate strategies; implement and manage changes and interventions to ensure project and technical goals are achieved and maintain a strong strategic voice for bettering the passenger experience on behalf of the Agency.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

The following duties are a representative summary of the primary duties and responsibilities. Incumbent(s) may not be required to perform all duties listed and may be required to perform additional, position-specific duties.

• Understand customer needs, Information Technology (IT) Passenger tools and products throughout their life cycle.

• Act as development owner in IT for passenger-facing technology such as Agency-supported applications and vendor-supported solutions; influence decision-making processes, including research and development planning, user experience research and passenger-facing technology selection. Use influence to build consensus.

• Own and drive complex IT solution design and delivery efforts including custom applications, COTS purchases, application, and data integration needs.

• Define, help drive and oversee conformance to standard delivery methods performed internally and through contract.

• Provide strong partnership to IT project managers and business partners.

• Identify and ensure the non-functional requirements and design of the solutions.

• Oversee the breadth of the solution domain and ensure that technical and subject matter experts are included in design and validation efforts.

• Own and ensure that quality technology decisions are made in a timely fashion.

• Oversee the solution design to ensure it is functionally complete, as well as provide appropriate availability, reliability, recoverability, etc., and conforms to agency strategy, standard and policy.

• Oversee the solution design to ensure that downstream IT efforts are informed of coming work and that the work conforms to their expectations.

• Support the creation of statements of work and participate in proposal evaluation and product selection.

• Participate in the creation of, and review of requirements, design, testing and quality assurance and migration plans.

• Provide ongoing support to the continual improvement of delivery and project management lifecycles.

• Participate in the creation of technology standards and processes.

• Work closely with the Enterprise Architecture (EA) Division to ensure alignment on strategy, risks, etc.

• Champions and models Sound Transit’s core values and demonstrates values-based behaviors in everyday interactions across the agency.

• Contributes to a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in alignment with Sound Transit’s Equity & Inclusion Policy.

• It is the responsibility of all employees to follow the Agency safety rules, regulations, and procedures pertaining to their assigned duties and responsibilities, which could include systems, operations, and/or other employees.

• It is the responsibility of all employees to integrate sustainability into everyday business practices.

• Other duties as assigned.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

Education and Experience:

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, software engineering or closely related field and five years of software development/system development experience; OR an equivalent combination of education and experience.

Required Licenses or Certifications:

None.

Required Knowledge and Skills:

• Experience leading technology teams through the delivery of change.

• Experience applying agile and/or waterfall delivery methods.

• Facilitation skills including conflict management, issue resolution, brokering agreements, and removing roadblocks.

• Excellent communication, critical thinking, and technical leadership skills with the ability to coach and mentor others.

• Experience modeling, analyzing and prototyping solutions.

• Ability to advocate, promote and sell ideas to achieve goals, improve efficiency, and reduce complexity.

• Excellent ability to use Microsoft Office programs and SharePoint.

• Developing documents and presentations.

• Establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with business partners, other department staff, management, and vendors.

• Working effectively under pressure, meeting deadlines, and adjusting to changing priorities.

• Responding to inquiries and in effective oral and written communication.

• Researching, analyzing, and evaluating new service delivery methods and techniques.

Preferred Knowledge and Skills:

• End-to-end delivery in a technical capacity for software development or automation in IT.

• Skills on Java, HTML, REST API, Mobile app development.

• Advanced principles, practices, methods and techniques used in the design, installation, troubleshooting and maintenance of technology systems and applications, and of software development lifecycle.

• In-depth understanding of key issues and success factors within an IT organization.

• Project and operational management of a technology programs.

• N-Tiered web architectures and distributed systems using Windows or Linux.

• Integration patterns and techniques including RESTful web services, queuing, and publish-and-subscribe.

• Highly available design, including horizontal and vertical scaling, geographic load balancing, etc.

• Pertinent federal, state, and local laws, codes, and regulations.

• Developing artifacts such as Entity Relation Diagrams, UML diagrams, User Stories, Use Cases, Swim Lanes, etc.

• Development technologies, such as Java, Python, PHP, HTTP/S, HTML, CSS, JSON, JavaScript, Apache, Tomcat, AJAX, Drupal, C# and IIS.

• RESTful, SOAP, or other standard web service integration.

• Development management tools, such as Git, SVN, JIRA, and JMeter.

• SQL, preferably for Microsoft SQL.

• Reporting solutions, such as Power BI, Crystal Reports, and Microsoft SSRS.

Physical Demands / Work Environment: 

• Work is performed in a standard office environment or remotely, with work location flexibility.

• Work can be performed via remote tools such as Zoom, MS Teams, WebEx.

• The Agency promotes a safe and healthy work environment and provides appropriate safety and equipment training for all personnel as required.

Sound Transit is an equal employment opportunity employer. No person is unlawfully excluded from employment action based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy), age, genetic information, disability, veteran status or other protected class.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)