Data Architect in Richmond

The Enterprise Architect will lead the design and implementation of enterprise data platforms using Microsoft Fabric. This role is responsible for defining data architecture standards, enabling scalable analytics platforms, and driving enterprise data strategy aligned with business needs.

Responsibilities:

• Architecture And Solution Design: Architect and implement enterprise data platforms using Microsoft Fabric, including Lakehouse, Data Warehouse, Real-Time Analytics, and Data Science workloads. Define and maintain technical architecture standards across ingestion, transformation, storage, and consumption layers. Design scalable medallion architecture using Fabric Lakehouse and Delta Lake. Develop data governance, lineage, catalog, and data quality frameworks using Microsoft Purview and Fabric governance capabilities. Create reusable frameworks, templates, and accelerators for data engineering teams.
• Data Engineering And Development: Lead development of robust data pipelines using Data Factory, Synapse Data Engineering, Notebooks, and Spark within Microsoft Fabric. Implement ETL and ELT pipelines from SaaS platforms, databases, APIs, and real-time streaming sources. Optimize data models for analytics workloads using Power BI Direct Lake, Lakehouse shortcuts, and Warehouse modeling. Apply performance tuning across compute, storage, queries, and data pipelines.
• Strategy And Leadership: Define enterprise data strategy aligned with business and analytics objectives. Lead technical reviews, design workshops, and architecture governance forums. Mentor data engineers, analysts, and business users on Microsoft Fabric best practices. Evaluate new Microsoft Fabric capabilities and recommend enterprise adoption strategies.
• Security And Compliance: Ensure security and access controls across workspaces, domains, OneLake, and data warehouses. Implement data privacy, retention, lineage, and compliance architectures. Collaborate with cloud security and infrastructure teams to ensure secure deployments.

Requirement/Must Have:

• Strong expertise in Microsoft Fabric including OneLake, Lakehouse, Data Factory pipelines, Synapse Data Engineering, Data Warehousing, and Real-Time Analytics.
• Hands-on experience with Power BI Direct Lake and semantic modeling.
• Proficiency in Python, SQL, PySpark, and Apache Spark.
• Strong understanding of Delta Lake and ACID Lakehouse principles.
• Experience designing modern data architectures including Lakehouse, Medallion, and Data Mesh.
• Solid knowledge of data governance, metadata management, and cloud architecture with preference for Azure.

Experience:

• 8–12+ years of experience in data engineering.
• 3+ years of experience in data architecture roles.
• Experience supporting enterprise-scale analytics and data platforms.

Skills:

• Microsoft Fabric architecture and implementation.
• Data engineering and pipeline development.
• Cloud-native analytics platforms.
• Data governance and security.
• Performance tuning and optimization.

Should Have:

• Microsoft Fabric certifications or Azure Data Engineering certifications.
• Experience migrating legacy analytics platforms such as SSIS, SSAS, ADF, or Synapse to Microsoft Fabric.
• Exposure to multi-region cloud environments and enterprise-scale data platforms.
• Experience leading architecture review boards or technical design authority groups.

Qualification And Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent work experience.