System Engineer & SME

Lumen Solutions Group Inc. is recruiting for a confidential client seeking a System Engineer & SME to provide portfolio-wide leadership for transportation operations applications, platforms, and modernization initiatives. The role governs system designs and modernization roadmaps, guides technical decisions, and coordinates across architecture, engineering, security, infrastructure, data, integration, and operations teams.

Responsibilities:

• Own and evolve the current-state, transition-state, and target-state system designs for the portfolio, including application, integration, data, infrastructure, security, and operational viewpoints
• Create and maintain system modernization roadmaps that sequence modernization outcomes, dependencies, architectural runway, technical enablers, and legacy retirement activities
• Lead solution design working sessions for complex, cross-domain initiatives spanning multiple applications, operational workflows, vendors, and technology platforms
• Define system and solution design requirements, technical decision records, reference patterns, standards, guardrails, and reusable capabilities that enable consistent delivery across teams
• Guide modernization of legacy and mainframe capabilities, including IBM mainframe and TPF environments, toward modular, service-oriented, API-led, microservices, and event-driven designs where appropriate
• Provide leadership for Java and Spring-based services, APIs, middleware, messaging, event streaming, data exchange, and system integration patterns
• Ensure designs address availability, resiliency, performance, scalability, observability, maintainability, security, privacy, disaster recovery, and supportability requirements
• Partner with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity, infrastructure, data, and engineering teams to ensure alignment with enterprise standards and approved technology direction
• Facilitate solution design reviews and workshops; clearly document decisions, alternatives, assumptions, constraints, dependencies, risks, and tradeoffs
• Evaluate technology options and vendor solutions using objective criteria, proof-of-concept findings, total cost of ownership, implementation risk, and strategic fit
• Provide technical direction and mentorship to solution architects, engineering leads, developers, and delivery teams without becoming a delivery bottleneck
• Communicate the technical strategy and recommendations to both technical and executive audiences using clear narratives, models, roadmaps, and decision-ready materials
• Contribute to portfolio planning, backlog refinement, PI Planning, and delivery governance by identifying architectural enablers, dependencies, and sequencing needs
• Monitor implementation for alignment with approved solution designs, technology standards, and design decisions, and work with teams to resolve deviations, technical debt, and emerging risks

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent combination of education, specialized training, and relevant experience
• 15+ years of progressive IT experience, including 10+ years in solution, application, systems, or enterprise architecture roles supporting complex, business-critical environments
• Demonstrated experience defining and delivering architecture for large-scale modernization programs involving multiple systems, integration points, data flows, and delivery teams
• Broad technical depth across legacy and modern platforms, including mainframe environments, distributed systems, Java/Spring, APIs, microservices, messaging, and event-driven architecture
• Proven ability to develop architecture roadmaps, reference architectures, solution designs, architecture decision records, standards, and governance artifacts
• Experience leading architecture across the full solution lifecycle, from strategy and discovery through design, delivery, production readiness, and modernization of operational systems
• Strong understanding of nonfunctional requirements, including security, resilience, availability, performance, scalability, observability, maintainability, and disaster recovery
• Demonstrated success influencing stakeholders and resolving complex technical decisions across business, product, engineering, operations, security, data, and infrastructure teams
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, and executive communication skills
• Practical experience working in a SAFe environment and supporting PI Planning, architectural runway, enablers, and cross-team dependency management
• Proven ownership of target-state architecture and modernization roadmaps across multiple interdependent, business-critical systems, rather than a single application
• Deep experience bridging mainframe or other legacy platforms with modern APIs, Java/Spring services, microservices, data platforms, and event-driven integration patterns
• Demonstrated ability to turn complex business and technical needs into actionable architecture, guide multiple delivery teams, and communicate tradeoffs and decisions to senior technical and business leaders
• Architecture experience in passenger rail, freight rail, transportation, logistics, transit, aviation, utilities, or another safety- and operations-critical industry
• Direct experience with rail transportation systems, operational technology landscapes, dispatching, crew, equipment, schedule, status, or day-of-operations capabilities
• Working knowledge of TOGAF, SAFe for Architects, Business Architecture Guild (BIZBOK), and DAMA-DMBOK practices
• Experience with cloud architecture, containers, Kubernetes, DevSecOps, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, API management, Kafka or similar event-streaming platforms, and modern observability practices
• Experience with architecture modeling using ArchiMate, UML, C4, BPMN, or comparable methods and tools
• Experience evaluating commercial products, system integrators, and vendor-proposed architectures in a multi-vendor delivery environment
• relevant architecture certification is a plus