Cloud (Azure) Data Architect

What success looks like in this role:

The candidate's responsibilities are centred on designing and influencing the platform's core data capabilities. This includes:

• Strategic Guidance & Architectural Standards: Go beyond execution to help shape the platform’s future. Advise on industry trends (e.g., Lakehouse Architecture, Unity Catalogue integration), translate business needs into technical requirements (e.g., compliance with GDPR/NIST frameworks), and recommend new tools and methods for competitive advantage.
• Manage and Drive Platform Maturity: Actively investigate, scope, and design new capabilities (e.g., a business-facing data catalogue). Define and refine architectural standards for Databricks and the wider Azure ecosystem.
• Design and Implement Shared Data Models: Design and oversee the development of data models and metadata systems, including conceptual, logical, and physical data models for our core enterprise entities.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Work with business stakeholders and technical teams to balance innovation with operational constraints. Actively collaborate on defining the data platform roadmap and mentor internal teams to promote best practices.
• Implement a "Governance-by-Design" Culture: Work with business and technical stakeholders to embed data governance and policy controls through automation and design. Provide L3 support for the Data Platform as a subject matter expert.

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You will be successful in this role if you have:

To be successful, the candidate must demonstrate deep, hands-on experience in the following areas:

• Data-Centric Solutions Architecture: Expert-level knowledge of data solutions design, including the ability to apply architectural standards for platforms like Databricks and Azure. This includes hands-on experience in selecting and implementing tooling that meets strategic and business needs.
• Data Modelling: Expert-level knowledge of data modelling from conceptual to physical design. Proven ability to create and document logical data models and entity relationship diagrams.
• Data Governance & Strategy: Strong understanding of data governance principles, data lifecycle management, and how to create and implement data strategies that align with business objectives.
• Cloud and Data Ecosystems: Deep, hands-on experience designing and managing data architectures on Microsoft Azure, with a proven ability to work with core services like Databricks, Azure Data Factory, Unity Catalog, and Azure Data Lake Storage.
• Systems Thinking: Ability to think through complex system interactions, design for failure, and document architectural decisions. This includes a comprehensive understanding of how various technologies and platforms interconnect.
• Continuous Delivery and Modern Standards: Knowledge and experience in delivering systems built to modern standards, including all of the rigour required to enable continuous delivery/deployment.
• Agile Team Collaboration: Experience as an integral member of a self-managing agile team, contributing to backlog grooming, sprint planning, and retrospectives.
• Communication and Interpersonal Skills: Excellent verbal and written communication skills. The candidate must be able to articulate complex technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences. As a remote-first role involving significant mentoring, the ability to build strong collaborative relationships in a distributed environment is non-negotiable.
• Specific experience with data governance tools like Microsoft Purview.
• Experience with data contract enforcement.
• Experience with building and operating data platforms specifically.
• Knowledge of data quality standards and data stewardship processes.