Senior Engineering Specialist Lead - Appian

Canada Life; Toronto; On-site; CAD 108,000 - 158,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Career development

Health & dental benefits

Volunteer day

Pension plan

Employee discounts and recognition

ERGs & mentorship

Job summary

Canada Life in Toronto seeks a Senior Technical Lead - Appian to drive enterprise automation initiatives. You will provide technical leadership across the full software lifecycle, overseeing Appian workflows, IDP, and RPA across the organization.

You will collaborate with business analysts, architects, and vendors to deliver scalable, secure solutions while aligning with enterprise architecture and security standards. Strong leadership and governance are essential for success.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 8+ years delivering enterprise software platforms.
• 5+ years designing and delivering Appian solutions across the SDLC.
• Experience leading technical teams in financial services.
• Strong knowledge of Appian, IDP, RPA, and workflow automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, implementation, and support of Appian Workflow, IDP, and RPA solutions across the enterprise.
• Translate business requirements into scalable, secure technical solutions.
• Provide technical direction and governance across the project lifecycle.
• Develop and maintain Appian applications, models, interfaces, and integrations.
• Drive development excellence with coding standards, reviews, and testing.
• Ensure end-to-end traceability across APIs, middleware, and data flows.
• Review architecture changes and production deployments for risk and impact.
• Lead platform administration, upgrades, and security across environments.
• Guide incident management, RCA, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Collaborate with security, Infrastructure, and vendors to optimize performance.

Skills

Leadership

Appian

Architecture

Security standards

Agile/DevOps

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Engineering/CS preferred

Tools

Appian

Jira

Confluence

ServiceNow

GitLab

AWS

Azure

Job description

Permanent Full Time

As a Senior Technical Lead - Appian, you will be accountable for delivering, supporting, and continuously evolving enterprise automation solutions that improve operational efficiency, quality, risk management, and client experience. You will provide technical leadership across the full software development lifecycle while partnering closely with business leaders, product owners, architects, analysts, infrastructure teams, and vendors to design, build, deploy, and support scalable automation solutions.

This role combines deep Appian expertise, people leadership, solution architecture oversight, operational excellence, and strategic technology direction.

What You Will Do

• Lead the design, development, implementation, and support of Appian Workflow, IDP, and RPA solutions across the enterprise.
• Partner with business analysts, product owners, architects, and stakeholders to translate business requirements into scalable, secure, and maintainable technical solutions.
• Provide technical direction and solution governance throughout the project lifecycle, ensuring alignment to enterprise architecture, integration patterns, security standards, and non-functional requirements.
• Develop and maintain Appian applications, process models, records, interfaces, integrations, data structures, and reusable components.
• Drive development excellence through technical reviews, coding standards, design reviews, testing, and performance optimization.
• Ensure end-to-end traceability and assess impacts across APIs, middleware, ETL processes, batch jobs, and vendor systems.
• Review and approve architecture changes, integration modifications, and production-impacting deployments.
• Ensure solutions are scalable, secure, resilient, and aligned with long‑term platform strategy.

Operational Excellence & Platform Ownership

• Own the administration and governance of the Appian platform across all environments, ensuring availability, stability, security, and compliance with enterprise standards.
• Manage platform configuration, user provisioning, role‑based access controls, authentication, authorization, and environment security in partnership with Infrastructure and Cyber Security teams.
• Plan, coordinate, and execute Appian platform upgrades, hotfixes, patches, and feature enablement activities while minimizing business disruption.
• Monitor platform health, capacity, performance metrics, and usage trends; proactively identify risks and implement optimization strategies.
• Establish and maintain platform operational standards, administration procedures, support models, environment management practices, and governance controls.
• Collaborate with Appian support, vendors, and internal infrastructure teams to resolve platform‑related issues and drive service improvements.
• Manage platform licensing, entitlement utilization, and capacity planning to ensure cost‑effective and scalable operations.
• Lead production support, application monitoring, performance tuning, and incident management activities for Appian‑based solutions.
• Provide Level 1 and Level 2 support, including break/fix resolution, upgrades, patches, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) activities for critical incidents and implement permanent corrective actions.
• Review release readiness and ensure rollback, recovery, and business continuity plans are in place before deployments.
• Manage platform configuration, user provisioning, role‑based access controls, authentication, authorization, and environment security in partnership with Infrastructure and Cyber Security teams.
• Monitor platform health, capacity, performance metrics, and usage trends; proactively identify risks and implement optimization strategies.
• Plan, coordinate, and execute Appian platform upgrades, hotfixes, patches, and feature enablement activities while minimizing business disruption.
• Establish deployment guardrails, validation controls, and post‑deployment verification processes to reduce operational risk.
• Ensure applications are continuously enhanced, secured, upgraded, and aligned with platform roadmaps.

People Leadership

• Lead, mentor, coach, and develop a high‑performing team of Appian developers and automation specialists.
• Provide guidance on architecture, design patterns, development standards, and engineering best practices.
• Support resource planning, work allocation, performance management, and career development activities.
• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, innovation, continuous learning, and operational excellence.
• Build strong relationships across technology teams, business units, and external partners to drive alignment and successful outcomes.

Strategic & Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve people, processes, technologies, and development practices.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry trends, including AI‑powered automation capabilities, and provide recommendations for adoption.
• Contribute to platform roadmaps, architecture standards, governance models, and modernization initiatives.
• Champion Agile and DevOps practices to accelerate delivery while maintaining quality and stability.

What You Will Bring

Education

• Bachelor's degree or post‑secondary diploma in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Business, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience

• 8+ years of experience delivering enterprise software solutions and supporting business‑critical technology platforms.
• 5+ years of experience designing and delivering Appian solutions across the full software development lifecycle.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical teams and large‑scale enterprise initiatives.
• Experience with Workflow, Business Process Automation, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), and/or Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platforms.
• Experience operating in financial services or highly regulated environments is preferred.

Technical Skills

• Expert knowledge of Appian application development, process modelling, integrations, records, interfaces, and deployment automation.
• Strong understanding of system integration patterns, APIs, middleware technologies, and enterprise architecture principles.
• Experience with logical data modelling and application performance optimization.
• Working knowledge of Agile, DevOps, CI/CD, GitLab, JIRA, Confluence, and ServiceNow.
• Experience with cloud and modern automation technologies, including AI‑enabled capabilities, is considered an asset.

Leadership Competencies

• Proven ability to lead, inspire, and mentor technical teams.
• Exceptional stakeholder management and relationship‑building skills.
• Strong analytical, problem‑solving, and decision‑making capabilities.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Adaptability and effectiveness in managing ambiguity within a fast‑paced, evolving environment.

Nice to Have

• Appian Senior Developer, Lead Developer, or Architect certification.
• Experience with GenAI‑enabled process automation solutions.
• Experience with enterprise document processing and OCR platforms.
• Experience managing distributed onshore/offshore delivery teams.
• Exposure to AWS, Azure, or cloud‑native integration services.

The base salary for this position is between $107,800.00 - $157,800.00 annually. This represents base salary only and does not represent other variable compensation components of our total compensation ( i.e. annual bonus, commission etc). If you are selected to move forward in our recruitment process, your recruiter will be able to discuss additional details of our total rewards program with you.

Career opportunities will be open a minimum of 5 business days from the date of posting, closing dates will vary depending on the search activity. All applications received will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

Grow with Canada Life

We’re united by a shared purpose: to improve the financial, physical and mental well-being of Canadians. Our company is trusted by 1 in 3 Canadians and contributes to the strength of communities across the country.

We’re looking for people who live our values everyday: we step up, we do the right thing, and we deliver – for our customers, communities and each other. Are you someone who always strives to do the right thing, who steps up for themselves and others, and who delivers with impact? Then we want to hear from you!

What we offer

• Career Development: Opportunities for career advancement, access to industry‑leading learning programs and up to$2,000 annually towards education reimbursement.
• Health & Wellness:Flexible health and dental benefits, plus a $5,000 mental health benefit to support your well‑being.
• Time Off:In addition to regular vacation and personal days, we support community involvement with a volunteer day.
• Financial Security:Company‑matching pension plan,share ownership program and additionalinvestment options.
• Rewards and Recognition: Employee recognition programs, service milestone celebrations, employee discounts and more!
• Emphasis on Community: We provide a workplace where employees feel connected and supported through Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), mentorship programs, social clubs and events.

Learn more about Canada Life.

We’re committed to removing barriers and ensuring equal access to employment. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation during the application process may contact [e-mail]. All information provided will be handled in accordance with applicable laws and Canada Life policies.

Canada Life would like to thank all applicants, however only those who qualify for an interview will be contacted