Data Architect - AWS

About the Company

Blackstraw.ai is an end-to-end technology services company specializing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Engineering solutions across Data Science, Data Engineering, LLM/GenAI and LLMOps. Founded in 2018, we help global enterprises across North America, Europe and Asia to build and operationalize AI systems that create measurable business impact. Our mission is to make AI adoption simpler, faster and scalable through a blend of deep domain expertise, reusable accelerators and proven engineering practices.

With a 450+ strong team of engineers, data scientists and AI specialists, we partner with organizations to deliver real-world outcomes in areas such as predictive analytics, computer vision, natural language processing and Generative AI. Headquartered in Florida (USA) with operations in Canada and India, Blackstraw.ai continues to empower global enterprises to unlock the true potential of AI.

Position: Data Architect – AWS

Experience: 10 to 16 Years

Location: USA / Canada (Remote)

Employment Type: Full‑time only

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Data Architect with deep AWS expertise to lead the modernization of our enterprise data ecosystem. The primary goal is to migrate legacy on‑prem SQL Server environments to a scalable, cloud‑native architecture leveraging Amazon S3, Redshift, Glue, Lambda, and related AWS services.

This role requires strong architectural leadership, hands‑on design skills, and the ability to collaborate with engineering, data governance, and business teams.

Key Responsibilities

Cloud Data Architecture & Migration

• Design the target-state AWS data architecture using S3, Redshift, Glue, Lambda, Lake Formation, and IAM.

• Lead the end‑to‑end migration of on‑prem SQL Server databases to AWS S3 (data lake) and Redshift (data warehouse).

• Define data ingestion, transformation, and orchestration pipelines using Glue, EMR, Lambda, Step Functions, or Databricks (if applicable).

• Establish data partitioning, compression, and lifecycle policies for S3‑based storage.

• Optimize Redshift clusters (RA3, Spectrum, Workload Management, distribution/sort keys).

Data Modeling & Architecture Governance

• Develop conceptual, logical, and physical data models for cloud‑native environments.

• Implement data lake and data warehouse best practices including schema design, metadata management, and cataloging.

• Define data quality, lineage, and governance frameworks in collaboration with enterprise data teams.

Performance, Security & Compliance

• Ensure high‑performance query execution and cost‑optimized storage/compute usage.

• Implement security controls: IAM roles, encryption (KMS), VPC, private endpoints, and audit logging.

• Establish backup, disaster recovery, and retention strategies for cloud data assets.

Collaboration & Leadership

• Work closely with application teams, DBAs, and business stakeholders to ensure smooth migration.

• Provide technical leadership to data engineers and developers.

• Document architecture decisions, standards, and migration playbooks.

Required Skills & Experience

Core Technical Expertise

• 10+ years in data engineering/architecture with strong SQL Server background.

• 5+ years of hands‑on AWS experience with:

  • S3, Redshift, Glue, Lambda, IAM, CloudWatch, Step Functions

  • Redshift Spectrum, Redshift Serverless (nice to have)

• Strong experience in migrating on‑prem databases to AWS.

• Expertise in ETL/ELT design, data modeling (3NF, Dimensional, Data Vault), and performance tuning.

• Strong SQL, Python, or PySpark skills.

Additional Preferred Skills

• Experience with Snowflake on AWS (optional).

• Familiarity with Terraform / CloudFormation for IaC.

• Knowledge of data governance tools (Collibra, Alation, Glue Data Catalog).

• Experience with CI/CD for data pipelines.

Education

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.

What We Offer

• Opportunity to lead a high‑impact cloud modernization program.

• Work with modern AWS technologies and enterprise‑scale datasets.

• Competitive compensation and growth‑oriented environment.

Blackstraw provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, marital status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis as protected by federal, state, or local law