Senior Data Architect

Performance Contracting Group (PCG) is seeking a Data Architect to own the design and evolution of our enterprise data architecture across a hybrid estate: a Microsoft Fabric analytics platform built on a medallion (Bronze / Silver / Gold) pattern, and a substantial on-premises SQL Server footprint that continues to run core transactional workloads. You will define how data moves from source systems — including Dynamics 365 F&O, on-prem SQL Server, APIs, and flat files — into OneLake, how it is modeled into governed star schemas, and how it reaches the business through certified Power BI semantic models.
This is a senior individual-contributor role. You will set the patterns and standards that data engineers, analysts, and FP&A modelers build against, and partner with Software Architecture, Infrastructure, and Security to keep those patterns aligned to enterprise standards.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Data Architecture

Own the target-state data architecture spanning Fabric and on-premises SQL Server, including the roadmap for which workloads migrate, remain on-prem, or run hybrid.

Establish and enforce the medallion standard — append-only Bronze ingestion with source and batch metadata, conformed Silver entities, business-ready Gold star schemas in the Fabric Warehouse.

Design logical and physical data models and maintain the enterprise data model, business glossary, and data dictionary.

Produce reference architectures and decision records; review significant designs before build and represent data architecture to stakeholders

Hybrid & On-Premises Integration

Architect SQL Server–to–Fabric integration, selecting among mirroring, Data Factory pipelines, Dataflows Gen2, OneLake shortcuts, and on-prem gateways based on latency, volume, and cost.

Define CDC, incremental-load, and watermarking strategies that keep Fabric current without destabilizing transactional systems.

Partner with the SQL Server DBA / Data Engineer on HA/DR, retention, and archival design — including D365 and legacy data archival — and set on-prem design, indexing, and partitioning standards.

Microsoft Fabric Platform Design

Design tenant and workspace topology, capacity allocation, and the Dev → Test → Prod promotion path across the IT platform layer, FP&A semantic layer, and business-facing reporting workspaces.

Maintain clear ownership boundaries: IT owns ingestion through Gold, FP&A owns business logic and KPI definitions, the business consumes curated Power BI Apps.

Set Direct Lake as the connectivity standard over Import and DirectQuery, and define the exceptions where alternatives are warranted.

Establish capacity monitoring, cost management, and Azure DevOps Git source-control standards for pipelines, notebooks, semantic models, and SQL objects.

Governance, Security & Quality

Define the layered security model — restricted Bronze, controlled Silver, broadly governed Gold — with row-level security enforced in semantic models.

Operationalize Microsoft Purview for cataloging, lineage, and classification across Fabric and on-prem sources, in partnership with Data Governance.

Establish data quality standards and reconciliation controls that prove Gold-layer outputs tie back to source systems; support the promoted-versus-certified dataset model.

AI Enablement & Mentorship

Design the data foundation for AI and agent workloads, including structured and unstructured access patterns for Copilot Studio and RAG scenarios.

Apply AI-adjacent database capabilities — vector types, semantic search, in-database embeddings — where they create measurable value.

Mentor data engineers, analysts, and FP&A modelers on architecture practice and modeling discipline, and translate business objectives into durable rather than project-specific design.

Requirements
Basic Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, or a related field.

5+ years designing and delivering enterprise data solutions, including 2+ years in a data architecture or lead data engineering capacity.

Demonstrated experience architecting a modern cloud analytics platform — Microsoft Fabric strongly preferred; Synapse, Databricks, or equivalent lakehouse experience considered.

Deep hands-on SQL Server experience: T-SQL, database design, indexing, partitioning, and performance tuning on-premises.

Proven expertise in dimensional modeling and star schema design, medallion architecture, and ETL/ELT pipeline design.

Experience integrating on-premises sources with cloud platforms, including gateways, CDC, and incremental load patterns.

Working proficiency with Power BI semantic modeling, DAX, and row-level security; PySpark or Python for large-scale transformation; Git and Azure DevOps for data assets.

Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for executive audiences.

Preferred Qualifications

Microsoft certification such as Fabric Analytics Engineer, Fabric Data Engineer, or Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

Experience with Dynamics 365 F&O data structures and integration patterns, and with Microsoft Purview.

Experience supporting FP&A or financial reporting, including GL, cost center, and allocation data models.

Prior participation in architecture governance bodies (ARB, ITSAC) and enterprise standardization efforts.

Experience in construction, specialty contracting, or a comparable project-based industry.

Local to the Kansas City metro area. Role is not eligible for visa sponsorship.

Key Measures of Success

Platform adoption: business-critical reporting sourced from certified Gold datasets rather than ad hoc extracts.

Standards compliance: new data initiatives delivered against published reference architectures, with exceptions documented and approved.

Trust in data: reduced reconciliation discrepancies between reported figures and source systems.

Delivery efficiency: faster time-to-deliver for new data domains through reuse of existing Silver and Gold assets.

Cost and performance: Fabric capacity utilization and on-prem workload cost tracked against plan.