Lead Architect Data in Bracknell

Syngenta Group, a global leader in agricultural technology and innovation, employs 60,000 people across more than 100 countries to transform agriculture through tailor-made solutions for farmers, society, and our planet. Our diverse portfolio encompasses seeds, crop protection, nutrition products, agronomic solutions, and digital services, all designed to help farmers produce healthy food, feed, fiber, and fuel while conserving natural resources and protecting the environment. Our mission is to address critical challenges such as climate change and food security through sustainable practices and cutting-edge solutions, while safeguarding the planet's resources.

We are seeking a Lead Data Architect to serve as a critical bridge between the EDO Enterprise Solution Architecture team and our business domains, with a strong focus on AI-aligned data initiatives. This role is embedded within a specific business function, serving as the domain's trusted architectural authority to accelerate delivery of data mesh, data science, ML, and GenAI use cases. The primary objective is to translate enterprise architecture blueprints, platforms, and standards into tangible, high-value solutions, while providing continuous feedback to evolve those standards based on real-world applications. This is a hands-on architectural leadership role requiring deep expertise in AWS and Databricks, modern cloud data architectures, and strong stakeholder influence and communication skills.

Responsibilities/accountabilities will also include:

• Act as the primary Data architect and trusted advisor for the embedded business function, supporting initiatives from ideation through to production.
• Design and document end-to-end data, aligned with enterprise standards for: data products, MLOps, emerging AgentOps practices, and AI-aligned data patterns (feature stores, RAG pipelines, inference architectures).
• Work closely with domain leadership to help shape domain data and AI strategy and roadmaps.
• Ensure solutions meet enterprise security, data governance, and AI risk standards while remaining delivery-oriented and scalable.
• Support the maturation of the domain's data product and AI operating model.

Qualifications and required experience:

• Deep knowledge of modern cloud data architectures on AWS, including lakehouse, streaming, and analytical workloads.
• Expert-level experience designing and operating Databricks Lakehouse platforms on AWS, with strong mastery of Delta Lake concepts (ACID transactions, schema evolution, time travel, and performance optimisation).
• Strong understanding of cloud security architectures, including VPC design, private connectivity, IAM least-privilege models, encryption, and enterprise identity integration.
• Solid grounding in data modelling paradigms (analytical, domain-oriented, event-driven) and their application in large-scale, multi-domain environments.
• Ability to translate enterprise blueprints into Domain-oriented Data Products, promoting decentralised ownership while maintaining central standards for interoperability and discoverability.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise metadata and governance tooling (e.g. Unity Catalog, Glue), including fine-grained access control and lineage.
• Strong capability in infrastructure-as-code and environment standardisation to support scalable and repeatable delivery.
• Hands-on experience applying DataOps principles, including Data observability, CI/CD, testing, and operational resilience of data pipelines.
• Demonstrated ability to apply cloud cost management (FinOps) and the ability to influence cost-aware design decisions.
• Proven experience architecting data platforms that support ML and Generative AI, including feature stores, vector search, RAG pipelines, and inference architectures.
• Exposure and deep appreciation for AI/BI, Ontologies and Knowledge Graphs.

There's a preference for the role to be based in Bracknell but other locations within the UK can be considered.

What we offer:

• Extensive benefits package including a generous pension scheme, bonus scheme, private medical & life insurance.
• Up to 31.5 days annual holiday.
• We offer a position which contributes to valuable and impactful work in a stimulating and international environment.
• Learning culture and wide range of training options.