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McMaster University
About McMaster: At McMaster University, we are driven by a shared purpose: advancing human and societal health and wellbeing. Through world-class research, transformative education, and meaningful community impact, we are addressing some of the world's most complex challenges and creating positive change locally and globally.
Consistently ranked among Canada's top universities and recognized internationally for research excellence, innovation, and student success, McMaster is home to more than 37,000 students, over 200,000 alumni worldwide, and a vibrant community of scholars, researchers, learners, and partners.
From pioneering discoveries in health sciences and engineering to advancing social innovation and community wellbeing, McMaster's impact extends far beyond our campus.
As we look toward the future, philanthropy will play an increasingly important role in enabling the University's aspirations. Through strategic partnerships with donors, alumni, foundations, corporations, and community leaders, McMaster is creating opportunities to accelerate discovery, enhance student experiences, support breakthrough research, and strengthen its impact on society.
About University Advancement:
University Advancement at McMaster University is an integrated department that encompasses the areas of Communications and Public Affairs, Marketing, Development, Alumni Advancement, Stewardship, Volunteer Engagement, and Advancement Services & Operations, and works collaboratively with McMaster’s Faculties and units across campus.
These areas coordinate their activities and work as a team to build relationships, reputation and resources on behalf of the University.
Our vision is: Together, we enable McMaster to advance human and societal health and well-being.
Inspired by McMaster’s tradition of collaboration and innovation, we strengthen relationships, reputation and resources in pursuit of our goal to be the best.
University Advancement’s approach to realizing our mission and vision reflects these core values and principles: Integrity, Quality, Respect, Service, Strategy and Teamwork.
Reporting to the Director of IT, Business Intelligence & Data Strategy, the Manager of IT Solutions is a critical technical anchor responsible for leading the strategic development, enhancement, and architectural evaluation of all application infrastructure, software, and core database systems within University Advancement (UA). Operating at the intersection of business requirements and systems engineering, this role collaborates closely with cross-functional UA teams to ensure that current operational needs and future digital transformation goals are seamlessly met.
The Manager will actively assess emerging enterprise technologies, architect secure API-driven integration models, and provide definitive recommendations for robust system usage, application security, and advanced operational reporting.
Additionally, the incumbent will establish structured end-user request intake frameworks, enforce mature release management and QA/UAT protocols, and direct comprehensive user data literacy training programs to optimize technology adoption across the department.
This position requires a profound commitment to University Advancement’s mission, vision, and core values: Integrity in data governance, Quality in engineering, Respect for constituent privacy, Service to our institutional partners, Strategy in technology scaling, and Teamwork across all university stakeholders.
Accountabilities:
Leadership & Culture: Drive a collaborative, service-focused IT culture to support the university's core research and academic missions.
Systems Architecture: Act as the technical SME for all advancement software, with a primary focus on securing and optimizing Ellucian Advance as the transactional system of record.
Team Management: Direct, hire, and mentor UA IT applications and systems staff, providing strict technical oversight on all programming and business analysis deliverables.
Modern Integration & APIs: Partner with UTS to transition the department away from legacy batch syncs toward low-latency, API-driven integration models and robust ETL pipelines.
DevOps & Release Management: Enforce mature change control and release management protocols, including structured QA and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) pipelines.
Advanced Analytics: Engineer and implement operational reports and executive dashboards to track complex fundraising targets, pipeline metrics, and organizational KPIs.
Strategic Procurement: Lead requirements gathering, vendor evaluations, and post-implementation reviews for all newly introduced cloud and on-premises software.
Collaborative Governance: Support the Director in translating business bottlenecks into scalable technical requirements, anchoring a collaborative forum (such as the Data Stewardship Committee) to prioritize institutional needs.
Security & Compliance: Administer system permissions, Entra ID app registrations, and network access boundaries to ensure flawless compliance with university cybersecurity and data privacy regulations (e.g., PIPEDA).
Data Stewardship: Lead large-scale data cleansing, duplicate resolution, and anomaly detection workflows by developing advanced diagnostic scripts and data-quality reports.
User Support Infrastructure: Standardize and monitor tier-2 functional support frameworks and desktop support response times, while directing ongoing data literacy training for end-users.
Minimum of 5 years of progressive IT leadership and systems engineering experience.
Demonstrated experience must include:
Project & Team Leadership: Managing complex enterprise technology projects and directly supervising application developers or systems administration staff.
Full-Stack Programming: Developing and refactoring code using modern programming languages, with the ability to write clean technical specifications and system documentation.
Database & Systems Engineering: Advanced relational database programming (SQL Server), cloud/serverless integration models, and managing enterprise Windows/Linux operating environments.
DevOps & QA: Designing and executing comprehensive system testing, debugging, and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) protocols.
Business Analysis & Governance: Partnering effectively with cross-functional stakeholders and business units to translate operational gaps into scalable system architectures.
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