Senior Data Architect – Denver International Airport

About Our Job

With competitive pay, great benefits, and endless opportunities, working for the City and County of Denver means seeing yourself working with purpose — for you, and those who benefit from your passion, skills and expertise. Join our diverse, inclusive and talented workforce of more than 11,000 team members who are at the heart of what makes Denver, Denver.

What We Offer

The City and County of Denver offers competitive pay commensurate with education and experience. New hires are typically brought into the organization between $105,000 - $150,000/year. We also offer generous benefits for full-time employees which include but are not limited to:

• A guaranteed life-long monthly pension, once vested after 5 years of service
• 457B Retirement Plan
• 140 hours of PTO earned within first year + 12 paid holidays, 1 personal holiday, 1 wellness day, and 1 volunteer day per year
• Competitive medical, dental and vision plans effective within 1 month of start date

Location & Schedule

The City and County of Denver supports a hybrid workplace model. Employees work where needed, at a job site several days a week and off-site as needed. Employees must work within the state of Colorado on their off-site days.   

In this position you can expect to work on site at least 2 days per week at the Denver International Airport.

Who We Are & What You’ll Do

Since opening on Feb. 28, 1995, Denver International Airport (DEN) has become one of the world’s busiest airports. In 2025, 82,427,962 passengers passed through DEN, making DEN 4th busiest airport in the U.S. and the world’s 10th busiest airport. DEN is Colorado’s primary economic engine, generating $47.2 billion in annual economic impact for the state. At DEN, we are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. We celebrate individuality and strive to keep Equity, Diversity, Inclusion & Accessibility (EDIA) at the center of all that we do.

We are seeking a Senior Data Architect to lead the design and advancement of DEN’s modern data ecosystem using Microsoft Fabric and cloud-scale analytics. In this role, you will shape how data is captured, integrated, modeled, and governed to support enterprise reporting, advanced analytics, and AI initiatives. You will collaborate with business partners and technical teams to deliver clean, trusted, and well-structured data assets, while guiding best practices across the organization. As a senior technical leader, you will mentor team members and help drive a scalable, future‑ready data architecture for the airport.

Specifically, as the Senior Data Architect, you will:

• Develop and maintain complex enterprise data models and integrations within the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem, ensuring alignment across systems and business needs.
• Design and build bronze‑layer ingestion solutions that bring raw data into Lakehouses, Warehouses, or Eventhouses using pipelines, notebooks, and stream technologies.
• Create silver‑layer cleansing and standardization solutions that prepare curated data for enterprise consumption using PySpark, SparkSQL, T‑SQL, and Fabric-native tools.
• Architect relational storage solutions (e.g., Lakehouse and Warehouse) that support scalable, performant, and reliable analytical workloads.
• Build gold‑layer dimensional models that deliver high‑quality, analytics‑ready datasets for reporting, dashboards, and AI initiatives.
• Architect and lead enterprise data acquisition, migration, integration, and ETL/ELT solutions across the Microsoft Fabric ecosystem, using OneLake as the data foundation and leveraging Fabric pipelines, notebooks, Python/PySpark, Spark SQL, and other Fabric-native capabilities to connect and process data from diverse enterprise sources while establishing scalable, reusable, secure, and maintainable ingestion and transformation patterns.
• Define and evolve enterprise data architecture standards, practices, and review processes across the Microsoft data estate.
• Establish and manage enterprise data governance using Microsoft Purview, ensuring transparency, lineage, quality, and consistent data definitions.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to teams and stakeholders, mentoring junior staff and advising on best practices in data modeling, architecture, and platform capabilities.
• Partner with business groups to understand data needs, translate requirements into architecture solutions, and ensure curated data assets support reporting and analytic outcomes.

What You’ll Bring

Our ideal candidate has some or all the following experience, skills, and characteristics:

• Extensive experience in modern cloud-based data engineering, with strong proficiency in Microsoft Fabric or comparable platforms (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake), including data modeling and end‑to‑end ETL/ELT development.
• Demonstrated leadership capabilities, including the ability to mentor junior team members, guide best practices, and contribute to a high-performing, collaborative engineering culture.
• Proven ability to translate business needs into scalable data architecture solutions and communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of enterprise data architecture principles, including data governance, metadata management, and designing performant, well‑structured data ecosystems.
• Hands-on expertise with Python, PySpark, SQL, and other tools used to build robust ingestion, transformation, and modeling pipelines.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., Microsoft Fabric or Azure Data certifications) are highly desirable but not required.

Required Minimum Qualifications

• Education requirement: Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, Business Administration, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Experience Requirement: Three (3) years of professional information technology experience developing and maintaining enterprise-wide data architecture, to include two years at the type and of the level of the Associate Data Architect.
• Education/Experience Equivalency: One (1) year of the appropriate type and level of experience may be substituted for each required year of post-high school education. Additional appropriate education may be substituted for the minimum experience requirements.

Additional Information

FBI Background Check: FBI criminal background check is required for all positions at Denver International Airport (DEN). Employees are also required to report any felony convictions and/or moving violations to maintain this clearance and be eligible for continued employment. By position, a pre-employment physical/drug test may be required.

Snow/Emergency Duties: Denver International Airport is a 24/7/365 team operation. If weather conditions warrant or an emergency crisis occurs, all DEN employees can be required to work extended hours and/or shifts.

Application Deadline

This position is expected to stay open until Friday, November 6, 2026. Please submit your application as soon as possible and no later than 11/6/26 at 11:59 p.m. to ensure consideration.

About Everything Else

Job Profile

CI2867 IT Data Architect Senior

To view the full job profile including position specifications, physical demands, and probationary period, click here.

Position Type

Unlimited

Position Salary Range

$101,050.00 - $166,733.00

Target Pay

$105,000 - $150,000/year

Agency

Denver International Airport

The City and County of Denver provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, genetic information, age, or any other status protected under federal, state, and/or local law. 

Applicants for employment with the City and County of Denver must have valid work authorization that does not require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the U.S.

For information about right to work, click here for English or here for Spanish.