Senior Data Architect

• Senior Data Architect
• 📍 Location: Plano, Texas, United States
• 🏢 Industry: Construction
• 💼 Work Setting: Hybrid

Are you passionate about architecting modern cloud-native data ecosystems and enabling AI-driven innovation at scale? This role combines enterprise data architecture, cloud engineering, governance, and AI enablement to drive business transformation.

Our client is seeking a Senior Data Architect to lead the design and evolution of enterprise data platforms that power analytics, AI/ML, and next-generation intelligent applications.

• Key Responsibilities
• Modern Data Platform Architecture
• Architect end-to-end data platforms across ingestion, transformation, and consumption layers.
• Design scalable data lakehouse solutions leveraging cloud-native services and modern data engineering practices.
• Define data storage, partitioning, indexing, and optimization strategies to ensure performance and cost efficiency.
• Implement enterprise-grade security controls, access management, encryption, and governance frameworks.
• AI, Machine Learning & Generative AI Enablement
• Design data foundations that support AI, machine learning, and Generative AI initiatives.
• Build feature stores, knowledge layers, and data products for advanced analytics and intelligent applications.
• Architect Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solutions using vector search and modern retrieval frameworks.
• Establish standards for prompt engineering, context management, model governance, and responsible AI practices.
• Enterprise Data Architecture
• Provide expertise across relational and NoSQL databases, including database design, optimization, scalability, and disaster recovery.
• Design and govern Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), Operational Data Store (ODS), and Lakehouse architectures.
• Establish scalable integration patterns supporting enterprise applications and APIs.
• Optimize data platforms for reliability, performance, and long-term sustainability.
• Integration & Application Enablement
• Define standards for APIs, data contracts, versioning, and interoperability.
• Architect integrations across enterprise systems, cloud platforms, IoT data sources, and external partners.
• Support event-driven architectures and real-time data processing strategies.
• Collaborate with application and platform teams to ensure data-driven solution design.
• Data Governance & Quality
• Lead implementation of data governance, metadata management, and data lineage frameworks.
• Establish data quality standards, monitoring processes, and service-level objectives.
• Drive data stewardship, cataloging, and enterprise-wide governance initiatives.
• Implement observability and operational monitoring across data platforms.
• Security, Compliance & Risk Management
• Ensure compliance with data privacy, security, and regulatory requirements.
• Implement data protection capabilities including masking, tokenization, encryption, and access controls.
• Define governance frameworks supporting secure AI and data usage.
• Partner with security teams to ensure enterprise compliance standards are met.
• Leadership & Strategic Guidance
• Develop architecture roadmaps, target-state designs, and technology standards.
• Lead architecture reviews, design workshops, and technical evaluations.
• Mentor data engineers, analysts, and architects while promoting engineering excellence.
• Collaborate with executive stakeholders to align architecture strategy with business objectives.

• Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or related field.
• 10+ years of experience designing enterprise data architectures and analytics platforms.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with cloud-native data technologies and platforms.
• Strong expertise in SQL, Python, and enterprise data modeling methodologies.
• Proven experience building modern lakehouse architectures and large-scale data ecosystems.
• Experience supporting AI/ML workloads and Generative AI solutions.
• Deep understanding of enterprise data governance, security, and compliance frameworks.

• Technical Expertise
• Cloud & Data Platforms
• AWS Data Services
• Data Lakehouse Architecture
• Data Warehousing & Analytics Platforms
• Streaming & Event-Driven Data Systems
• Data Engineering
• ETL/ELT Frameworks
• Data Modeling (3NF, Dimensional, Data Vault)
• Real-Time Data Processing
• Data Quality & Observability
• Databases
• SQL Server
• PostgreSQL
• MongoDB
• High Availability & Disaster Recovery
• AI & Machine Learning
• Generative AI & LLM Enablement
• Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Vector Databases & Semantic Search
• AI Data Governance
• DevOps & Automation
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Infrastructure as Code
• MLOps & DataOps Practices
• Platform Automation

• Preferred Qualifications
• AWS Data Analytics or Solutions Architect certifications.
• Experience with Business Intelligence platforms such as Power BI or Amazon QuickSight.
• Exposure to privacy-enhancing technologies and advanced governance frameworks.
• Experience supporting regulated industries and globally distributed teams.
• Strong strategic planning and stakeholder management capabilities.

• Key Skills
• Enterprise Data Architecture
• Cloud-Native Data Platforms
• Data Lakehouse & Modern Data Engineering
• AI/ML & Generative AI Enablement
• RAG & Vector Search Architectures
• Data Governance & Security
• SQL, Python & Data Modeling
• Leadership, Mentoring & Strategic Planning