Lead Data Architect

Job Title:

Lead Data Architect

Job Category:
Information Technology

Time Type:
Full time

Minimum Clearance Required to Start:
Secret

Employee Type:
Regular

Percentage of

Travel Required:

Up to 10%

Type of Travel:
Local

CACi is seeking a Lead Data Architect to serve as the trusted advisor to the Chief Data and AI Officer (BCDAO) at Diplomatic Security (DS) and to own the technical vision, strategy, roadmap, and implementation of the DS data platform. The environment is built on Microsoft Azure, with future expansion to AWS planned.

In this role, you will translate BCDAO and DS data and AI priorities into a secure, scalable, and cost-effective Azure data platform, shaping its architecture across ingestion, integration, storage, transformation, and analytics. You will work with engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, and mission teams to turn requirements into supportable solutions, and lead the data engineering team in delivering them from design through operations across unclassified and classified environments.

• Serve as the trusted advisor to the BCDAO and DS leadership on data architecture, technical options, risks, and trade-offs.
• Own the technical vision, strategy, standards, and roadmap for the DS data platform, including data warehouse, data lake, lakehouse, analytics, and AI/ML solutions.
• Lead implementation of the data platform through the data engineering team, providing direction, design reviews, proof-of-concept work, and troubleshooting.
• Architect secure data management and movement across security domains, including unclassified, Secret, and Top Secret environments, in coordination with cybersecurity and cross-domain teams.
• Lead data integration and ETL/ELT design across diverse and disparate source systems, and drive migration of legacy on-premises and IaaS solutions to Azure PaaS and SaaS services.
• Establish data governance, data quality, metadata, lineage, and access control practices that drive data standardization across DS and prepare data for analytics and AI/ML use.
• Embed security and compliance requirements into the architecture, including identity, network isolation, encryption, auditability, and automated compliance controls.
• Evaluate solutions for reliability, performance, scalability, resilience, maintainability, and cost, and document key designs and architecture decisions.

Required:

• Active Secret clearance required to start.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, engineering, data management, or another technical discipline.
• 10+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, data warehousing, BI, or data platform delivery, including 3+ years in an architect or technical lead role.
• Extensive hands-on experience architecting and delivering Microsoft Azure data solutions, including Azure Data Factory, ADLS Gen2, Synapse Analytics, Databricks, and Azure SQL.
• Expert knowledge of data architecture, integration, ETL/ELT, data modeling, data warehousing, and data lifecycle management.
• Experience with classified/restricted environments and data management across Unclassified, Secret, and Top Secret domains, including cross-domain solution (CDS) concepts.
• Proven experience owning a data platform roadmap, leading implementation, and driving cloud migration/modernization.
• Demonstrated ability to advise senior executives and lead technical teams.

Desired:

• Experience supporting U.S. federal, law enforcement, diplomatic, or national security missions, particularly in Azure Government or classified Azure environments.
• Experience designing data platforms that support AI/ML, advanced analytics, or real-time data processing.
• Experience with Microsoft Purview, Event Hubs, Cosmos DB, Power BI, Azure Dev Ops/CI/CD, and infrastructure…