Data Architect

Summary

The Data Architect will act as the single accountable technical lead, partnering with business, technology, and data stakeholders to define a durable, platform-agnostic data foundation. The assessment outcome will inform a 12–18 month implementation phase; platform implementation and data engineering execution will follow after the assessment.

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end 10-week assessment as the primary technical authority.

Conduct structured discovery across operational, financial, and supporting systems such as PCRS, Workday, SQL databases, spreadsheets, and SharePoint portals.

Identify and document current state data flows, integration patterns, data ownership, and quality considerations.

Surface undocumented or lightly governed assets and assess architectural and governance implications.

Partner with business stakeholders to identify priority domains and high-value KPIs.

Perform KPI-to-source analysis to trace data needs back to systems and datasets.

Define conceptual, tool-agnostic target architecture options aligned to a Microsoft-first environment.

Evaluate and compare platform patterns (for example, Azure-aligned lake/lakehouse, Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake) without committing to specific tooling.

Establish foundational data governance guardrails including ownership, data quality expectations, and access considerations.

Produce a phased, executable 12–18 month roadmap and provide staffing sequencing recommendations.

Prepare and present executive-level readouts and decision-ready artifacts.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in data architecture, data strategy, or enterprise information architecture roles.

Demonstrated experience leading assessment and discovery-led engagements.

Strong understanding of modern data platform patterns (data lakes, lakehouses, warehouses) in cloud environments.

Experience working across multiple enterprise systems, including ERP/operational platforms, SQL databases, spreadsheets, and SharePoint portals.

Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to executive and nontechnical stakeholders.

Proven ability to operate independently as a senior architect without reliance on large delivery teams.

Experience successfully leading greenfield implementation of enterprise data platforms to build enterprise foundations.

Nice to Have

Experience in Microsoft-centric enterprise environments (Azure, M365 ecosystem).

Platform evaluation experience comparing Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, and similar cloud data platforms.

Experience developing data governance, data quality, and access control strategies.

Background supporting analytics, reporting, or AI readiness initiatives in an advisory capacity.