Senior Data Operations & Security Architect

Office of the Illinois Secretary of State
Alexi Giannoulias
Job Title: Information Systems Advisor II - Data & Operations Support
Division: Business Services
Union: IFT
Location: 501 S 2nd St, Springfield, IL – Sangamon County
Salary: Range $8,020 to $14,138 monthly- commensurate with experience
Benefits: https://cms.illinois.gov/benefits/state employee.html

Attention: Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States; the Office of the Secretary of State will not complete certification and/or sponsorship requests.

Overview:

Acts independently in a senior technical role providing hands-on technical leadership, platform oversight, and supervisory guidance for the agency’s enterprise data operations environment; ensures reliable execution of data pipelines, stable platform operations, and secure/NIST‑aligned data handling practices across the organization; supervises data engineers, ETL specialists, support analysts, and operational staff who maintain data pipelines, ingestion processes, data quality checks, monitoring, and platform‑level support functions;

responsible for ensuring data availability, performance, operational reliability, and compliance.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Technical Leadership & Operational Architecture
  - Provides technical direction for enterprise data operations, including ingestion pipelines, ETL/ELT workflows, scheduling, monitoring, and failure recovery practices;
  Designs secure and scalable data processing architectures aligned with enterprise standards;
  Leads root‑cause analysis, optimization efforts, and modernization of operational data tools and workflows. For example, Azure Data Factory & Synapse pipelines using Pyspark for Medallion Architecture.
• Team Supervision & Staff Development-Supervises data operations engineers, ETL specialists, and support personnel;
  Assigns work, reviews technical deliverables, conducts performance evaluations, and provides coaching and mentorship;
  Ensures cross‑training, skill development, and adequate staffing coverage for mission-critical operations.
• Security, Compliance, and NIST-Aligned Practices-Ensures all operational processes comply with NIST-aligned security controls and ILSOS/statewide cybersecurity policies;
  Implements secure data transport methods, access controls, encryption standards, and audit logging requirements;
  Coordinates with cybersecurity and governance teams on data classification, retention, and secure handling of sensitive data;
  Assists with audits, compliance reviews, and agency-wide modernization activities using tools such as Microsoft Purview.
• Cross-Functional Coordination & Incident Management-Collaborates with Data Governance & Compliance, Data Analytics & BI, Application Development, and Infrastructure teams to support integrated workflows;
  Serves as an escalation point for operational incidents affecting data availability, ingestion pipelines, or platform stability;
  Communicates operational impacts, timelines, and resolutions to stakeholders and leadership using services such as Azure monitoring and Log analytics.
• Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement-Establishes operational KPIs and quality thresholds for pipeline success, uptime, latency, and data freshness;
  Leads automation initiatives, performance tuning, documentation improvements, and operational standardization;
  Evaluates new tools, technologies, and platforms to improve reliability and efficiency;
  Provides support for special projects, enterprise initiatives, and additional responsibilities assigned within the Enterprise Data Practice for example Dev Ops and pipeline observability frameworks
• Performs other duties as assigned.