Principal Data Architect

Fully remote.
Principal Data Architect 
Duration : 12 month contract
Client : Amtrak 

The focus is on Labor Management. Railway experience is a plus

Job Description
Principal Data Architect to lead the strategic design and technical evolution of the Labor Management Operations ecosystem for a major rail transportation leader in Washington, DC. As a key technical authority with over 15 years of experience, you will bridge the gap between legacy mainframe environments and modern, near-real-time streaming architectures. You will be responsible for defining the overall information architecture, ensuring data integrity across a complex portfolio, and setting the enterprise standards for data modeling, API contracts, and security. This is a high-impact role that combines visionary architectural leadership with deep technical expertise in high-performance database tuning and event-driven systems.
Qualifications
•    Experience: Minimum of 15+ years of related work experience in Data Management, specifically within Labor and Transportation systems.
•    Industry Knowledge: Previous experience in the Rail industry is highly preferred.
•    Technical Mastery: Demonstrated expertise in Information Architecture, Data Modeling, and both Relational and NoSQL technologies.
•    Modern Stack: Proficiency with streaming technologies (e.g., Kafka, Kafka Schema Registry) and distributed systems architecture.
•    Legacy Systems: Proven ability to navigate and extract value from legacy environments, including mainframe architectures.
•    Education: Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or a related field required; Master’s degree in Engineering or Computer Science preferred.
•    Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.