We have a client in the industry seeking a Senior Power BI Architect for a contract engagement. This role will serve as the subject matter expert for enterprise level Power BI architecture, governance, performance optimization, and secure data delivery. The Senior Power BI Architect will define and enforce best practices, design scalable analytics solutions, guide development teams, and ensure Power BI deployments align with security, compliance, and enterprise standards. The ideal candidate is both a hands on architect and mentor who can translate business requirements into modern BI architecture while elevating overall Power BI maturity across the organization.
Position Overview
The Senior Power BI Architect will lead the design, implementation, and governance of enterprise grade Power BI solutions. This individual will collaborate across data engineering, cloud architecture, security, and business teams to deliver scalable, secure, and high performance analytics platforms. The role combines technical architecture, DevOps leadership, governance oversight, and strategic roadmap planning.
Key Responsibilities
Power BI Architecture and Solution Design
Design, implement, and maintain enterprise level Power BI solutions including semantic models, datasets, and scalable workspace architectures.
Develop architectural guidelines for Lakehouse and Warehouse integration, Direct Lake, DirectQuery, and Import mode usage.
Define and enforce standards for data model optimization, naming conventions, reusable components, and development patterns.
Architect templates and reusable frameworks to ensure consistency and accelerate delivery.
Governance, Best Practices, and Center of Excellence Leadership
Establish and maintain enterprise Power BI governance frameworks, including workspace strategy and taxonomy, dataset certification standards, version control, DevOps processes, and application lifecycle management best practices.
Lead or support a BI governance committee or Center of Excellence to align business units and technical teams.
Document and promote best practices through playbooks, technical standards, and internal training initiatives.
Deployment, Automation, and DevOps
Build and maintain automation for CI CD pipelines using Microsoft Fabric and Power BI Deployment Pipelines along with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
Ensure structured development, testing, and production release management with appropriate approvals and validation processes.
Standardize deployment patterns for datasets, semantic models, and reports.
Promote Git enabled development and version control best practices across teams.
Security, Compliance, and Data Protection
Design and implement enterprise security strategies including Row Level Security, Object Level Security, sensitivity labeling, and data loss prevention policies.
Align access management and publishing standards with enterprise identity and access management policies.
Ensure compliance with corporate, regulatory, and data privacy requirements.
Conduct periodic audits of workspace access, dataset permissions, and publishing practices.
Performance Optimization and Monitoring
Establish monitoring processes for dataset refresh performance, gateway health, query performance, DAX efficiency, and capacity management.
Conduct performance tuning and provide optimization guidance to development teams.
Implement usage analytics dashboards to track adoption and optimize capacity and cost management.
Mentorship, Enablement, and Cross Functional Collaboration
Guide BI developers on design patterns, data modeling best practices, visualization standards, and advanced DAX techniques.
Conduct code reviews, architectural reviews, and solution design sessions.
Deliver training sessions to elevate Power BI capabilities across business units.
Collaborate closely with data engineers, cloud architects, security teams, and business stakeholders to deliver aligned and scalable solutions.
Strategic Leadership and Roadmapping
Define and drive the Power BI and Microsoft Fabric roadmap.
Evaluate new platform features and assess enterprise impact to support adoption strategies.
Provide guidance on tool selection, licensing strategy, and capacity planning.
Required Qualifications
Seven or more years of experience with Power BI, including enterprise semantic model development.
Strong expertise in DAX, data modeling, and Power Query.
Deep understanding of Microsoft Fabric, Azure Synapse, and modern data architecture principles.
Hands on experience with Power BI Deployment Pipelines and Azure DevOps or Git integration.
Knowledge of enterprise security, governance, and compliance frameworks.
Proven experience mentoring and guiding BI teams.
Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non technical stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with Databricks, Lakehouse architectures, and Delta tables.
Microsoft certification in Power BI Data Analyst or equivalent credentials.
Experience establishing or leading a BI Center of Excellence.
Background supporting large scale enterprise analytics environments.
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