Data Architect Lead

Mission Statement

Michigan Medicine improves the health of patients, populations and communities through excellence in education, patient care, community service, research and technology development, and through leadership activities in Michigan, nationally and internationally. Our mission is guided by our Strategic Principles and has three critical components; patient care, education and research that together enhance our contribution to society.

Job Summary Working at the University of Michigan Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences and the Kellogg Eye Center means being part of a team committed to discovery, understanding, curing, preventing, and treating eye disease.

The Kellogg Eye Center has long upheld the values of exemplary patient care and dedication to patients and their families. Together, Kellogg faculty and staff have developed a statement of purpose, a long-term vision, and guiding principles that reaffirm these values.

Purpose: Improve lives through understanding, curing, preventing, and treating eye disease.

Vision: Improve lives around the world by enhancing vision.

• Innovation:
  Our curiosity drives innovation and the quest for knowledge.
• Teamwork:
  We are a collegial, productive, and collaborative community.
• Inclusivity:
  We value engagement with all communities we serve.
• Caring:
  We are respectful and compassionate.
• Integrity:
  Our ethics are built on openness, honesty, and trust.

The Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences seeks a Data Architect whose primary mission will be to build and maintain research data infrastructure supporting data science and artificial intelligence studies across multiple research teams.

In this role, the Data Architect will design reliable, user-friendly, multi-modal data infrastructure aligned with FAIR principles ? Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable ? to enable high-quality, population-level research. This position will serve as a core member of the department?s data science efforts and will contribute directly to academic and collaborative research with the potential to impact eye care and healthcare more broadly.

The Data Architect will work independently while regularly communicating progress to the Director of Data Science and departmental leadership. The ideal candidate will have excellent interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with statisticians and data scientists to ensure smooth data pipelines. Strong technical expertise in data engineering, including proficiency in SQL and Python, is also required.

This is a hybrid position located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

• Design, build, and maintain scalable research data infrastructure to support multiple research teams and studies.
• Integrate multi-modal data (electronic health records, visual fields, ophthalmic imaging, etc.) into cohesive, reliable, and accessible systems.
• Maintain existing research data pipelines utilizing Epic Clarity extractions.
• Establish standards for data governance, quality assurance, and HIPAA security compliance.
• Interface with various stakeholders ranging from departmental leadership to members of research teams to understand and anticipate data needs.
• Collaborate with university-wide informatics experts to integrate eye-specific data with system-wide data resources.

Data Architect Lead

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Science, Statistics, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 3+ years of experience in big data analytics with a record of project ownership and independent work.
• Proficiency with relational databases (SQL) and Python is required. Familiarity with various data warehouse and data lake architectures (Snowflake, Databricks) is necessary.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to drive technical direction and clearly explain decisions to research investigators and leadership.
• Demonstrated ability to function effectively in a team-based environment with a wide variety of stakeholders.

Data Architect Lead

• Demonstrated expertise in management of large electronic health…