Data Platform Architect - GCP, BigQuery, Airflow & Terraform

Robert Walters is partnering with a leading consumer-focused organisation undergoing significant investment in its enterprise data capabilities to recruit a Data Platform Architect.

This is an excellent opportunity for either an established Data Architect or a Senior/Lead Data Engineer looking to step into their first formal architecture role.

You will take technical ownership of the evolution of a modern cloud-based data platform, helping define the architecture, standards and engineering patterns needed to support analytics, data products and an expanding AI strategy.

While the existing environment is built predominantly on Google Cloud Platform, the client is open to candidates from AWS, Azure or other modern cloud data environments. Strong GCP experience is highly desirable, but broader cloud architecture and engineering capability is more important.

What you'll be doing

• Define and evolve the architecture of a modern cloud-based enterprise data platform
• Work hands-on alongside Data Engineers to implement architectural changes and new engineering patterns
• Assess new data technologies and solutions against wider business and technology objectives
• Establish scalable, secure and reusable approaches to data ingestion, transformation and integration
• Support engineering teams with architecture decisions, technical standards and platform best practice
• Develop monitoring, alerting and observability approaches across the data platform
• Translate security, privacy and governance requirements into practical engineering solutions
• Help establish self-service capabilities for data consumers
• Champion DataOps principles including automated testing, CI/CD and infrastructure automation
• Influence the longer-term data and AI technology strategy

What we're looking for

You may already be operating as a Data Platform Architect, Data Solutions Architect or Cloud Data Architect, or you could be a strong Senior/Lead Data Engineer ready to take greater ownership of architecture and technical direction.

You'll ideally bring:

• Strong hands-on data engineering experience
• Experience designing or significantly contributing to modern cloud data platforms
• Strong understanding of cloud data lakes, warehouses and modern data architectures
• Experience with GCP, AWS or Azure, with GCP particularly desirable
• Knowledge of technologies such as BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Synapse, Databricks or equivalent
• Experience with modern tooling such as dbt, Airflow and Terraform, or comparable technologies
• Strong knowledge of ETL/ELT and data integration patterns
• Understanding of CI/CD, automated testing and DataOps practices
• Awareness of data security including access control, encryption and data privacy
• Experience working closely with Data Engineering, Security, Governance and Product teams
• The ability to translate complex technical decisions into clear recommendations for both technical and non-technical audiences

Exposure to metadata management, data cataloguing, data quality or observability platforms would be advantageous.

Why consider this opportunity?

This is not a purely conceptual architecture position. You will remain close to the technology and engineering teams while gaining genuine ownership of the direction of an enterprise data platform.

For a Senior Data Engineer who has already started taking ownership of solution design, standards and technical decisions, this represents a particularly strong opportunity to make the move into architecture without stepping away from hands-on technology.

Apply now or contact Robert Walters for a confidential discussion.

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