Data Architect (Microsoft Fabric)

Role: Data Architect (Microsoft Fabric)

Location: Atlanta, GA/Richmond, VA

Duration: 12+ Months

Job Description:

Role Overview:

The Data Engineering Architect (Microsoft Fabric) will lead the design, development, and optimization of end-to-end data platforms built on Microsoft Fabric, ensuring scalable, secure high-performance data solutions. This role serves as a technical leader who defines architecture standards, governs data engineering best practices, and collaborates closely with business, analytics, and engineering teams to deliver enterprise-grade data capabilities.

Key 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 quality frameworks leveraging Microsoft Purview and Fabric's governance capabilities.

Create reusable frameworks, templates, and accelerators for data engineering teams.

Data Engineering & Development:

Lead development of robust data pipelines using Data Factory, Synapse Data Engineering. Notebooks, and Spark within Fabric.

Implement ETL/ELT pipelines from diverse sources-SaaS, databases, APis, real-time streams.

Optimize data models for analytics workloads using Power Bl Direct Lake, Lakehouse shortcuts, and Warehouse modeling.

Apply performance tuning across compute, storage, queries, and pipelines.

Strategy & Leadership:

Define enterprise data strategy aligned with business and analytics needs.

Lead technical reviews, design workshops, and architecture governance forums.

Mentor data engineers, analysts, and business users on Fabric best practices.

Evaluate emerging capabilities in Microsoft Fabric and recommend adoption paths.

Security & Compliance:

Ensure security and access controls across workspaces, domains, OneLake, and warehouses.

Implement data privacy, retention, lineage, and compliance architecture.

Collaborate with cloud security and infrastructure teams on safe deployments.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

8-12+ years in data engineering, with 3+ years in data architecture roles:

Strong expertise in Microsoft Fabric, including:

OneLake and Lakehouse

Data Factory pipelines

Synapse Data Engineering & Data Warehousing

Real-Time Analytics (KQL)

Power BI (Direct Lake/semantic models)

Proficiency in:

Python, SQL, PySpark, Spark

Delta Lake / ACID Lakehouse principles

Experience with modern data architectures: Lakehouse, Medallion, Data Mesh.

Strong understanding of:

Data governance & metadata management

MLOps/DataOps/DevOps practices

Cloud architecture (Azure preferred)

Preferred Qualifications:

Microsoft Fabric certifications) or Azure Data Engineering certifications.

Experience migrating from legacy analytics platforms (SSIS/SSAS/ADF/Synapse) to Fabric.

Exposure to enterprise-scale data platforms and multi-region cloud environments.

Experience leading architecture forums or technical design authority groups.

Soft skills:

Strong communication and stakeholder engagement abilities.

Leadership mindset with experience guiding engineering teams.

Ability to simplify complex technical concepts for business users.

Problem-solving mindset and ownership orientation.