Senior Snowflake Architect - FinOps, Governance & Security

We are seeking a Senior / Principal-level Snowflake Architect for an initial 8–10 week consulting engagement supporting the assessment of a large, complex enterprise Snowflake environment. This is an architecture and advisory-focused engagement centered on evaluating the organization's current Snowflake implementation and developing a clear remediation plan and future-state strategy. The primary area of focus is Snowflake Fin Ops and compute optimization, along with governance, security, data intake/integration, configuration, and overall platform architecture.

The environment is large, mature, and highly complex. The consultant must be able to look across the entire Snowflake ecosystem, identify architectural and operational issues, distinguish symptoms from root causes, and recommend practical improvements based on Snowflake best practices. This is not primarily a hands-on development position. The ideal candidate is a senior Snowflake SME who can assess the environment at an architectural level, guide technical teams on how Snowflake should be implemented and governed, and assist with targeted configuration or quick-win remediation where appropriate.

• Perform a comprehensive assessment of a large-scale enterprise Snowflake environment.
• Evaluate the current-state architecture, configuration, governance, security, data intake, ETL/integration, and operational processes.
• Lead the Fin Ops assessment, with particular emphasis on Snowflake compute consumption and cost optimization.
• Analyze Snowflake usage and spending to identify inefficient compute utilization, unnecessary querying, data-management practices, and other drivers of excessive platform cost.
• Recommend improved approaches for compute management, cost visibility, budgeting, forecasting, and ongoing Fin Ops governance.
• Evaluate existing Snowflake governance practices and identify gaps in standards, policies, processes, ownership, and controls.
• Assess security architecture and implementation, including roles, permissions, administrative access, and overall access-control strategy.
• Review the current implementation against Snowflake architectural and security best practices.
• Assess data ingestion and integration processes and their impact on Snowflake performance, cost, and governance.
• Evaluate the interaction between Snowflake and the surrounding enterprise data ecosystem, including Informatica and other integration technologies.
• Define a practical current-state to future-state roadmap and prioritized remediation plan.
• Identify low-hanging opportunities that can be corrected or reconfigured during the assessment itself.
• Participate in stakeholder and technical discovery sessions to understand both platform operations and business requirements.
• Clearly communicate findings, architectural recommendations, risks, priorities, and remediation strategies to technical and business stakeholders.
• Support development and presentation of final assessment findings and recommendations.

• Extensive experience designing, assessing, and supporting large-scale enterprise Snowflake environments.
• Senior or Principal-level Snowflake architecture expertise.
• Demonstrated experience with Snowflake Fin Ops, compute optimization, and cost management.
• Deep understanding of Snowflake's consumption and pricing model and the architectural decisions that influence platform cost.
• Experience identifying and resolving inefficient compute utilization and Snowflake consumption patterns.
• Strong Snowflake governance experience, including standards, policies, processes, controls, and platform operating models.
• Strong knowledge of Snowflake security architecture, including role…