Data Architect

Description:
Direct Hire

Hybrid schedule in Plano, TX

Comp range: $150-180K

15% travel (including int'l)

MUST BE US CITIZEN or GREEN CARD HOLDER (No C2C)

Architect the Future of Enterprise Intelligence. The Senior Data Architect provides technical leadership across the company's data landscape shaping enterprise data strategy and designing scalable, secure, and well governed data platforms that power analytics, AI/ML, and intelligent applications. This role spans traditional data management (DBMS, data modeling, warehousing, governance) and modern cloud native/AI data engineering on AWS, including bronze, silver, gold patterns, Generation (RAG) for LLMs, and data products that serve Cloud-native SaaS application teams at global scale.

You will collaborate with business stakeholders, data scientists, engineers, and platform teams to translate use cases into target data architectures, ensuring performance, reliability, security, and cost efficiency at global scale.

• Architect end-to-end pipelines across from raw to polished layers using Cloud native services such as S3, Glue (ETL & Data Catalog), Lake Formation, Redshift, Athena, EMR/Spark, Kinesis/MSK, Step Functions, Lambda, Event Bridge.
• Define storage/format strategies (e.g., Parquet/Delta/Apache Iceberg) and partitioning, compaction, and indexing for performance and cost.
• Implement row/ column level security, encryption (KMS), secrets management, and fine-grained authorization via IAM/Lake Formation.

• Design datasets and feature/knowledge layers to support Sage Maker training/inference and Amazon Bedrock applications (e.g., Knowledge Bases, Guardrails, Agents, and Invoke Model/Converse orchestration).
• Lead RAG architectures (chunking, embeddings, retrieval) using vector databases such as Amazon Open Search Serverless (vector search) or Aurora PostgreSQL + pgvector; define evaluation and feedback loops to improve answer quality.
• Set prompt, context, and token budget standards; guide teams on safe data handling for LLMs (PII redaction, policy driven filters, secured context injection).

• Provide deep expertise in relational and No
  
  SQL systems: SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, including schema design, indexing, query/perf tuning, replication, partitioning, and HA/DR.
• Design and govern EDW/ Lakehouse/ODS patterns; integrate with .NET/C# services and Angular frontends via well designed APIs and data contracts.

• Define API and data contract standards (REST/GraphQL, Protobuf/Avro/JSON), ensuring consistent versioning and backward compatibility for .NET/C# and Angular consumers.
• Orchestrate ingestion from SAP, Salesforce, IoT/telemetry, external data sources, and partner ecosystems; standardize CDC and streaming patterns (e.g., MSK/Kinesis, DMS, Glue).
• Partner with Solution/Platform Architects to ensure microservices and event driven designs are data efficient and observability ready.

• Implement data governance (policies, stewardship, data classification), cataloging (Glue Data Catalog), lineage (Open Lineage compatible), and quality (rules, thresholds, SLAs/SLOs).
• Embed monitoring & cost governance (Cloud Watch, Cloud Trail, Cost Explorer, Lake Formation audit, data access logs) and drive continuous optimization (storage tiers, compaction, pruning).

• Enforce privacy and compliance (e.g., GDPR) with data minimization, tokenization, masking, and access controls across environments.
• Define secure patterns for model inputs/outputs (LLM safety), prompt hygiene, and guardrails to prevent leakage or misuse.

• Produce architecture blueprints, target state designs, and build/run guardrails; guide PoCs and pilots to derisk solutions.
• Mentor data engineers, analysts, and junior architects; lead design reviews, threat modeling, and cost/performance reviews.
• Communicate clearly with technical and nontechnical stakeholders, champion a culture of engineering excellence and…