Data Architect - Principal

. Established in 2021,
** Independence Pet Holdings
** is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America.
** Principal Architect – Data, Analytics & Business Intelligence Architecture:
** This hands-on Data Architect leads significant transformations across all insurance and non-insurance brands, leveraging data, AI, and business intelligence. This transformation will position us as the world's largest pet insurance and pet-health provider.
* ** Reports to**:
Chief Architect (Head of Architecture)
* ** Partners with**:
Chief Data Officer (CDO) and CDO team
* ** Location**:
Remote/Hybrid – Chicago preferred- ##

Role Overview  In close collaboration with the CDO team, this role leads
** enterprise data architecture
** and strategy for IPH, driving the architecture and governance of the Unified data platform and enabling advanced analytics and AI/ML capabilities across all Pet Insurance and non-insurance brands.  It combines
** data platform, architecture, engineering**,
** data governance**, and
** business intelligence architecture
** to ensure a unified, secure, and scalable data ecosystem.  
** Key Focus Areas**:

- Building
** unified Customer Data Platform (CDP)
** across multiple zones/domains/lines of business - Enabling
** data monetization
** through cross-sell and up-sell insights and customer journey analytics - Driving
** Gen-AI/Agentic AI
** adoption (agents, skills, RAG) with data as foundation - Handling
** non-standard data
** from various sources (pet metadata, third-party data with formatting issues) - Transforming non-insurance data into
** pet insurance actionable insights and vice versa.**  ##

Key Responsibilities  ### 1. Calandra Data Platform Architecture (30%)  
* Architect, design, and support / govern the implementation the
** Azure-based enterprise data platform
** using cloud-native services  
* Architect a
** medallion lakehouse** (Bronze/Silver/Gold tiers) for structured and unstructured data  
* Enable
** real-time streaming
** and
** batch processing
** for analytics and operational insights  
* Architect
** a multi-region, multi-AZ architecture
** with multiple instances per zone for high availability  
* Ensure unified CDP across multiple zones/domains/lines of business

With the CDO team, develop future-state
** data architecture roadmap
** aligned with IPH's digital transformation goals- ## Data Architecture Process Workflow (Expected Participation)  ### As Solution Architect:  
* Define
** high-level design**, scope, and intended outcomes  
* Align to business goals, governance standards, and
** target architecture (Calandra Toolkit)*
* * Hand off requirements to Data Architecture- ### As Data Architect:  
* Working hand in hand with the IDEA / CDO team, translate solution into
** data models, integrations, security, and governance patterns*
* * Validate
** scalability, regulatory, compliance**, and long-term roadmap alignment  
* Produce clear
** technical specs for engineering
*** Conduct "Solution Architecture  + Data Architecture" review - In collaboration with the CDO team
* Support implementation, design, and go-live
* Performance, security, and governance
* Reusability and standards compliance
* Ensure required fixes are addressed before proceeding- ###   ## Technical Requirements  ### Required Platforms & Tools  Category  Technologies  
** Data Platforms*
* ** Databricks**, Azure Synapse,
** Microsoft Fabric,*
* ** MS Cosmos DB*
* ** BI & Analytics*
* ** Power BI**, Self-Service BI, Semantic Modeling  
** CDP*
* ** Customer Data Platform
** architecture, enrichment pipelines  
** Cloud*
* ** Azure** (primary), AWS  
** Streaming
* * Kafka, Kinesis, Spark Streaming, Real-time pipelines  
** Data Governance
** Data Catalog, Lineage, MDM, Quality Frameworks  ### Gen-AI & Agentic Requirements (Nice to Have → Becoming Critical)  Capability  Description  
** Machine Learning
** Model building, deployment, ML pipelines  
** Gen-AI Agents & Skills
** Multi-agent pipelines, agentic workflows  
** RAG
* * Retrieval Augmented Generation for data insights  
**…