Acquire an ObjectReader with ObjectMapper#readerFor(TypeReference) using a TypeReference describing the typed collection you want. Then use ObjectReader#readValue(JsonNode) to parse the JsonNode (presumably an ArrayNode).

For example, to get a List<String> out of a JSON array containing only JSON strings

CopyObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
// example JsonNode
JsonNode arrayNode = mapper.createArrayNode().add("one").add("two");
// acquire reader for the right type
ObjectReader reader = mapper.readerFor(new TypeReference<List<String>>() {
});
// use it
List<String> list = reader.readValue(arrayNode);

Since Jackson 2.11 methods readerForListOf and readerForArrayOf are available. Thus your code will look like the following:

JsonNode jsonNode = getJsonPayload();
JsonNode partial = jsonNode.path("someArrayField");
List<String> z = new ObjectMapper().readerForListOf(String.class).readValue(partial);

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
List<Employee> e = new ArrayList<Employee>();
ArrayNode array = mapper.valueToTree(e);
ObjectNode companyNode = mapper.valueToTree(company);
companyNode.putArray("Employee").addAll(array);
JsonNode result = mapper.createObjectNode().set("company", companyNode);

Yes, the Jackson manual parser design is quite different from other libraries. In particular, you will notice that JsonNode has most of the functions that you would typically associate with array nodes from other APIs. As such, you do not need to cast to an ArrayNode to use. Here's an example:

JSON:

{
    "objects" : ["One", "Two", "Three"]
}

Code:

final String json = "{\"objects\" : [\"One\", \"Two\", \"Three\"]}";

final JsonNode arrNode = new ObjectMapper().readTree(json).get("objects");
if (arrNode.isArray()) {
    for (final JsonNode objNode : arrNode) {
        System.out.println(objNode);
    }
}

Output:

"One"
"Two"
"Three"

Note the use of isArray to verify that the node is actually an array before iterating. The check is not necessary if you are absolutely confident in your data structure, but it's available should you need it (and this is no different from most other JSON libraries).