NAVA Software is looking for a Sr Data Architect
Details:
Sr Data Architect
Location: TX - 4 days/week onsite
Duration: 6-12 months
Seeking a Data Architect to own the strategic design and governance of our enterprise data landscape, built on Oracle on-premise database platforms and modeled using Erwin. This role sits above individual project data models: you will define the enterprise-wide data architecture, standards, and target operating model that all data modelers, engineers, and DBAs build against, while personally handling the highest-complexity, highest-volume modeling and architecture decisions across the organization. You will bring proven experience architecting for large-scale data volumes (multi-GB to multi-TB), regulated environments, and the performance, scalability, and integrity demands that come with them. You will also be responsible for assisting in development and management of Data Governance and Master Data Management solutions. You must be comfortable presenting deep technical concepts to non-technical leadership i.e., have good technical and communication skills coupled with the ability to provide technical mentorship.
Key Responsibilities
Data Architecture & Data Strategy
- Define and own the enterprise data architecture strategy, including target-state data models, subject area models, and reference architectures across the Oracle on-premise estate.
- Establish enterprise-wide data modeling standards, naming conventions, and governance policies within Erwin, and ensure consistent adoption across data modeling and engineering teams.
- Own the enterprise Erwin model repository/mart: subject area organization, model versioning, complex merges, and cross-model consistency at scale.
- Partner with stakeholders (Application Teams, Enterprise Architecture, business unit leaders) to translate business strategy into a coherent, long-term data architecture roadmap.
- Evaluate and architect for scalability, performance, and maintainability of Oracle databases handling large data volumes (GB to multi-TB scale), including partitioning, indexing, and storage strategy at the architectural level.
- Assist in promoting the Data Architecture function to increase the adoption of Data Virtualization (Denodo) across the enterprise.
Data Modeling & Design Oversight
- Design and review conceptual, logical, and physical data models for the most complex, cross-functional, and high-volume domains in the enterprise.
- Provide architectural review and approval of data models produced by senior/staff data modelers, ensuring alignment with enterprise standards, referential integrity, and downstream performance implications.
- Lead reverse-engineering and rationalization efforts for large, legacy Oracle schemas, consolidating and simplifying where architecturally sound.
- Guide both OLTP/3NF and dimensional (star/snowflake) modeling approaches, selecting the right pattern for transactional, operational, and analytical workloads.
Governance, Performance & Risk
- Assist in enriching the enterprise data governance artifacts tied to the architecture: business glossary, data lineage, metadata repository, and data dictionary standards.
- Lead capacity planning and performance architecture for large Oracle databases anticipating growth in data volume and ensuring the model and physical design scale accordingly.
- Assess and mitigate architectural risk in schema changes at enterprise scale, including impact analysis across integrated systems.
- Ensure data architecture practices meet regulatory, security, and compliance requirements applicable to the industry.
- Establish policies, procedures and guidelines regarding all aspects of Data Governance
Master Data Management
- Assist in establishment of policies, procedures and guidelines regarding all aspects of Master Data Management
- Ensure Architectural rules and design of the MDM process are documented and best practices are adhered to.
- Developing a strategic roadmap for MDM, and assisting in developing a roadmap and its implementation
Leadership & Collaboration
- Mentor and provide technical direction to data modelers, ETL developers, and DBAs on modeling best practices, Erwin usage, and Oracle architecture patterns.
- Act as the primary architectural liaison between business stakeholders, application teams, DBAs, and infrastructure teams.
- Present architecture decisions, trade-offs, and roadmaps to senior leadership and non-technical stakeholders.
- Provide mentorship to Data Analysts to ensure data management and design best practices are adhered to.
- Collaborate with support teams to ensure consistent and proactive support methodologies are in place for all aspects of data movement and data transformation.
Required Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in data architecture, data modeling, or database engineering, including prior experience as a senior/lead data modeler, solution architect or data architect.
- Deep, hands-on expertise with Erwin Data Modeler at an enterprise scale (model mart, subject areas, complex compare/merge, versioning across large teams).
- Strong expertise in Oracle Database (on-premise), including advanced SQL/PL-SQL, schema design, partitioning, indexing strategy, and performance tuning at the architectural level.
- Demonstrated experience architecting and modeling for large data volumes (GB to multi-TB scale) with a track record of designs that scaled successfully in production.
- Strong command of data modeling theory (normalization/denormalization, cardinality, keys, referential integrity) and dimensional modeling (star/snowflake) for analytics.
- Experience defining enterprise data standards, governance frameworks, and metadata/lineage practices.
- Extensive working knowledge of all aspects of Data Movement and Processing, including Middleware, ETL, API, OLAP and best practices for data tracking
- Proven ability to operate at the intersection of technical architecture and executive stakeholder management i.e., translating business strategy into data architecture and communicating trade-offs to leadership.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, with experience producing architecture documentation, ER diagrams, and data dictionaries for both technical and business audiences.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in a regulated industry (utilities, financial services, insurance, healthcare) with associated data governance and compliance obligations.
- Experience leading or mentoring a team of data modelers/architects.
- Previous experience working with PostGres and MongoDB and big plus.
- Familiarity with complementary data modeling tools such as ER/Studio, Power Designer, Collibra, Alation
- Exposure to hybrid on-prem/cloud data strategies, even where the primary platform remains Oracle on-premise.
- Experience with Target Operating Model (TOM) design for data functions.
- Relevant certifications (OCI, DAMA, CDMP, etc.) is a plus.
- Experience with Hadoop/MongoDB is a plus
- Working experience with Denodo is a plus
