Lead Data Architect

As a Lead Data Architect you will provide hands-on technical leadership role defining how data is modeled, structured, and consumed across our enterprise data platform. You will own the architectural standards that turn raw data into trusted, reusable, and AI-ready assets across our data warehouse, data lake, and the downstream applications and models that depend on them.

Title: Lead Data Architect

Duration: 3-6 months Contract-to-Hire

100% Remote (Hybrid If you're located in Boston, MA )

Key Responsibilties

• Design enterprise data models across core business domains using 3rd Normal Form and Dimensional Modeling knowing when each is the right tool and being able to defend the tradeoff
• Define and enforce the Medallion Architecture layering strategy — what belongs in Bronze, Silver, and Gold, when curation adds value vs. overhead, and how raw data can be responsibly exposed to downstream consumers
• Set guardrails for ELT pipeline architecture: source alignment, incremental load strategies, and failure handling expectations
• Architect and build the semantic layer for LLM-powered applications — ontology design, entity resolution, metadata enrichment, and how structured datasets are surfaced to AI agents and RAG pipelines
• Define interface standards between the data platform and analytics/application workloads — API source design patterns, latency SLAs, and the boundary between warehouse and operational data store.
• Design RBAC and RLS implementations that reflect how the business organizes around data, without making access a bottleneck
• Partner with business and BI teams to connect Snowflake data models to BI tool implementations, drive dataset adoption, and translate business questions into reusable modeled assets
• Author modeling standards, and platform guidelines; conduct architecture reviews; and mentor data and analytics engineers

Required

• 8+ years in data engineering, analytics engineering, or data architecture, with at least 3 years in an architecture or technical leadership capacity
• Deep hands-on experience with Snowflake — dynamic tables, RBAC/RLS, column masking, performance optimization
• Proven experience designing Medallion Architecture at enterprise scale
• Strong command of both 3NF and Dimensional Modeling in production environments
• Experience architecting a semantic layer — dbt Semantic Layer, Tableau / PowerBI, or equivalent
• Hands-on experience with Etl/ELT methods, dbt and the patterns that make pipelines maintainable, testable, and observable
• Track record of driving dataset adoption in partnership with business and BI stakeholders

Desirable

• Experience with Databricks, Delta Lake, or Snowflake Unity Catalog
• Exposure to LLM integration patterns — RAG, semantic search, structured data grounding, agentic data access
• Experience with data API design — REST or GraphQL over warehouse data, contract management, versioning
• Familiarity with domain-oriented data ownership models and what makes them succeed organizationally
• Working knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform) and infrastructure-as-code practices
• Contributions to open-source tooling or published architectural thinking

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer