Senior Data Architect

Our client is the US business of a global firm. The technology and data platform is being built from scratch on Microsoft Azure and Databricks. There is no legacy estate to work around, and the architecture decisions made in the next year will shape how the business runs for a long time. The Senior Data Architect is one of the critical early hires. This person designs the data foundation the business will run on, and stays close enough to the work to build the data models personally.

The role

You own the data architecture for the US business: how data from broking, client, policy, carrier and finance systems is modeled, integrated, governed and made available for reporting and analytics.

You report to the Head of Architecture and work alongside an enterprise architect and a data engineering team that is being hired now. This is a hands-on seat. Expect to spend a real share of your week doing data modeling yourself, not only reviewing other people's.

In the first year, success looks like:

·        A target data architecture and roadmap that architecture, data and business leaders have agreed to

·        A core enterprise data model for the main broking domains, in production on the platform

·        A repeatable way to bring data from acquired firms and new broking teams onto the platform

What you'll do

·        Design and own the enterprise data architecture on Azure and Databricks, including the lakehouse layers, integration patterns, and how data is served to reporting, analytics and AI use cases

·        Build conceptual, logical and physical data models yourself for core broking domains such as clients, policies, placements, carriers, producers, commissions and claims

·        Set the standards for modeling, naming, data quality, lineage, metadata and access control, and make sure delivery follows them

·        Define how source systems feed the platform, including broking and finance systems and Salesforce

·        Create the playbook for onboarding data from acquired businesses and newly hired broking teams

·        Work with data engineers on pipeline design, performance and cost, reviewing their work and helping them past blockers

·        Partner with business analysts and business leaders to turn operational and reporting needs into data designs

·        Coordinate with the parent group's architecture and data teams so US designs stay compatible where it matters

What you bring

·        10+ years in data engineering and data architecture, including several as the architect accountable for an enterprise data platform

·        Strong, current, hands-on data modeling skill across dimensional, normalized and Lakehouse (medallion) patterns, with models you built and can walk through

·        Production experience designing on Microsoft Azure and Databricks, including Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Azure Data Lake Storage and Azure Data Factory or similar

·        Strong SQL and working Python or PySpark, enough to prototype a design and review an engineer's code

·        Experience integrating many source systems into one platform, including SaaS applications such as Salesforce

·        Practical data governance experience: data quality, lineage, master data and security

·        A track record in a build-from-scratch or major re-platforming environment, where the answers weren't already written down

·        The ability to explain a design choice to an executive and to an engineer, and to hold your position when it matters

Nice to have

·        Insurance experience at a broker, agency, carrier or MGA, and familiarity with policy, placement and commission data

·        Experience with broker or agency management systems as data sources

·        Experience integrating data from acquired companies in an acquisition-heavy business

·        Experience designing data foundations for AI and machine learning use cases

·        Databricks or Azure architecture certifications