Lead Data Architect

Principal Data Architect

Role: Forward Deployed Engineer with Nashville based Healthcare Enterprise

Location: Hybrid - (80% Remote)

Employment type: Full-time

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Data Architect to lead the design and delivery of modern data platforms. This role combines architecture, hands-on engineering, and client consulting: guiding customers through technical decisions while remaining closely involved in implementation, proofs of concept, and troubleshooting.

You’ll translate business requirements into scalable data architectures, establish governance and security practices, and provide technical leadership across delivery teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead customer discovery sessions to understand business objectives, current platforms, and technical requirements.
• Develop architectural blueprints, explain tradeoffs, and create actionable implementation roadmaps.
• Design GCP lakehouse architectures using BigQuery, Cloud Storage, BigLake, and Dataplex.
• Architect real-time and batch ingestion, ETL/ELT pipelines, and orchestration using technologies such as Airflow and Pub/Sub.
• Define data models and optimize storage, partitioning, and analytical workload performance.
• Establish practices for cataloging, metadata, lineage, data quality, security, and access control.
• Align architecture with enterprise governance and regulatory requirements.
• Build proofs of concept and resolve complex implementation and production issues.
• Lead architecture reviews, mentor engineers, and guide technical delivery.
• Serve as a trusted client advisor, presenting recommendations clearly to technical and business stakeholders.

Required Qualifications

• 8–10 years of progressive experience in software engineering or data platforms, including at least five years architecting solutions on GCP and/or Databricks.
• Strong understanding of lakehouse, data product, and medallion architecture patterns.
• Experience designing scalable batch and streaming data systems.
• Knowledge of data modeling, storage optimization, and analytical performance tuning.
• Experience implementing metadata management, lineage, data quality, governance, and security.
• Familiarity with tools such as Dataplex, Data Catalog, IAM, or equivalent technologies.
• Demonstrated technical leadership, mentoring, and architecture review experience.
• Ability to move between architectural strategy and hands-on solution development.
• Strong client-facing communication skills, including discovery, presentations, and explaining technical tradeoffs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Databricks, Delta Lake, and Unity Catalog.
• Experience designing hybrid GCP and Databricks platforms.