Senior Data Architect; FTC

Position: Senior Data Architect (8-month FTC)
I'm hiring a Senior BI Data Architect to join a global SaaS organisation and take ownership of a large-scale data platform transformation . This is a hands-on architecture role sitting at the intersection of data engineering and BI - where your work will directly shape how the business uses data to make decisions. The company A global technology business operating in the data and insights / research space , serving major clients worldwide and processing hundreds of millions of data points annually.

They are investing heavily in modernising their data platform and analytics capabilities , with a strong focus on performance, scalability, and self-serve analytics. The role You'll take full ownership of the Databricks Lakehouse and BI architecture, leading the migration away from legacy systems while building a clean, governed and scalable platform. This is not just a design role - you'll be deep in the detail , refactoring SQL, building pipelines, and optimising performance.

What you'll be doing Design and implement a governed Databricks Lakehouse architecture (Unity Catalog, schemas, volumes) Lead migration of complex legacy SQL logic into modular, scalable pipelines Build and optimise data transformation frameworks using Spark / Python / SQL pipelines Act as the go-to expert for query performance optimisation (Spark execution plans, data skew, joins) Design and implement dimensional data models (star / snowflake schemas) Architect the semantic layer for BI (Omni or similar tools like Looker) Build CI/CD pipelines to automate testing and deployment Work with stakeholders across Product, Finance, and Commercial teams to deliver scalable solutions What you bring Must-haves 8 years in data engineering / data architecture Deep experience with Databricks (Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog) Expert SQL and distributed computing knowledge Strong experience with data modelling (star / snowflake schemas) Proven experience migrating legacy data platforms Ability to optimise performance across large datasets

Experience with modern BI semantic layers (e.g. Looker, Omni, Superset)

Experience with CI/CD and version control (Git) Nice to have

Experience with dbt or similar transformation frameworks Exposure to AI/BI or natural language querying tools Experience in multi-tenant or embedded analytics environments Why this role Own and shape a modern data platform at scale High-impact project with visible business outcomes Combination of architecture  hands-on engineering Work on performance, scalability, and governance challenges Flexible, remote-friendly working What success looks like A clean, governed Lakehouse architecture Improved performance and reduced cost across the platform Scalable, reusable data pipelines A robust semantic layer enabling self-serve analytics across the business