Software Architect - Data Platform

About The Position:

As the Data Architect for the G-P Data Platform, you will be responsible for defining and driving the execution of our target-state, Databricks-native architecture across our data platform. This role balances strategic technical leadership with hands-on technical execution, ensuring our engineering investments align directly with customer expectations and our long-term technology vision.

Reporting into the Architecture team, you will work in close partnership with Product Management, Cloud Operations, Business Operations, and cross-functional engineering squads. You will act as a trusted technical advocate and mentor, driving platform consistency, lowering total cost of ownership (TCO), and further enhancing our world-class data analytics and reporting capabilities.

What You Will Do:

• Target-State Architecture: Design and drive the execution of a scalable, cloud-native target-state architecture across the end-to-end software platform.
• Ingestion architecture: Define architectural patterns for scalable automated data ingestion
• Hands-on Execution & PoCs: Deliver hands-on proof-of-concepts (PoCs) alongside engineering teams using SQL, PySpark, Serverless Python or other platform languages to validate design decisions.
• Governance & Consistency: Drive architecture consistency across all platform components to harmonize integration, maximize component reuse, and eliminate technical debt. Act as an SME for data governance designs and implementation.
• Security & Compliance: Define and enforce data platform security standards and infrastructure security to prevent platform and data breaches.
• Product & Business Alignment: Partner with Product Management to define our application analytics strategy and gain a deep business understanding of aligned domain areas.
• Technology Innovation: Serve as the strategic sounding board for validating and introducing new technologies, open-source solutions, and 3rd-party applications.
• System Reliability: Ensure system and infrastructure architecture design results in high availability, low latency, and minimal service outages as a core measure of success.
• Engineering Excellence: Evangelize architectural best practices, educate engineering teams, and advocate for continuous improvement and developer enablement.
• AIDLC Contribution: Contribute to our AI-Powered agentic development capabilities as they relate to the data platform, data transformation and analytics.

What We Are Looking For:

Minimum Requirements:

• Data Architecture Experience: Extensive data architecture background driving architectural and design decisions in Cloud data platforms within software-centric organizations. Strong Data Modeling and Governance experience.
• Data Platforms: Strong Databricks experience (or another lakehouse platform based on Spark)
• Technical Proficiency: Proven hands-on capability with the modern data stack and a history of building/designing complex technical solutions. Expertise in developing solutions with SQL and PySpark.
• AI Skills: Experience with using agentic AI in the SDLC for efficiency gains, and using GenAI in data workloads as a tool for data analysis.
• Data Design Skills: Proven ability to design data schemas for analytics and reporting consumption.
• Analytical & Data Skills: Demonstrated ability to structure and process qualitative/quantitative data to evaluate Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and make sound technology trade-off decisions.
• Communication & Leadership: Effective communicator with a proven ability to explain complex technical concepts and gain buy-in for architectural strategies across cross-functional teams.
• Problem Solving: Ability to thrive in unstructured or ambiguous environments, conceptualizing and designing creative solutions to complex technical challenges.
• Cloud & Domain Expertise: Focused experience in one or more of the following: Security and Access Control, Cloud Operations & Infrastructure, or 3rd-Party Integrations.
• **Industry Experience: **Minimum of 15 years in the software industry, with a minimum of 3 years in an architecture position

Preferred Qualifications:

• Cloud Platforms: Hands-on experience architecting on major public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Serverless: Experience with developing and supporting serverless workloads on a public cloud platform.
• Security Standards: Deep knowledge of modern infrastructure security protocols, data privacy compliance, and access control frameworks.
• Developer Enablement: Track record of active involvement in developer enablement, engineering mentorship, and promoting continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) best practices.