Role Summary

We are looking for a Principal AWS Solution Architect – Data & Analytics to serve as the technical authority and strategic leader for enterprise data platforms on AWS. This role is responsible for defining the long-term data & analytics architecture vision, establishing organization-wide standards, and guiding multiple teams and programs to deliver scalable, secure, and business-critical analytics solutions.

This is a hands-on architecture leadership role, combining deep technical expertise with executive-level influence.

Role Scope & Impact

At the Principal level, you will:

Own enterprise-wide data & analytics architecture strategy on AWS

Act as the final technical escalation point for complex data challenges

Influence technology roadmap, investment decisions, and platform modernization

Mentor Senior/Lead Architects and raise the overall architectural bar

Partner closely with CIO/CTO, Data Office, Security, and Product leadership

Key Outcomes (Success Measures)

Within 12–18 months, you will:

Define and institutionalize a reference architecture for modern data platforms (lakehouse, streaming, analytics, ML-ready).

Enable multiple business domains to adopt self-service, governed analytics at scale.

Improve platform reliability, security posture, and cost efficiency across AWS data workloads.

Standardize architecture patterns, guardrails, and best practices adopted across teams.

Reduce delivery risk by proactively addressing architectural debt and scalability limits.

Responsibilities

Enterprise Architecture & Strategy

Define the enterprise data & analytics architecture vision aligned to business strategy.

Own architectural standards for:

Data lakes & lakehouse platforms

Warehousing & analytical querying

Streaming & real-time analytics

Metadata, governance, and data sharing

Evaluate and recommend build vs buy decisions and new AWS services or ecosystem tools.

AWS Data Platform Architecture

Design and govern solutions using AWS services such as:

Storage & Lake: Amazon S3, AWS Lake Formation, Glue Data Catalog

Processing: AWS Glue, EMR (Spark), Lambda, Step Functions

Analytics: Amazon Athena, Amazon Redshift (incl. Spectrum)

Streaming: Amazon Kinesis, MSK (Kafka)

Define best practices for:

File formats (Parquet/ORC), partitioning, compression

Table formats (Apache Iceberg / Hudi / Delta Lake, where applicable)

Data modeling (dimensional, data vault, domain-oriented models)

Security, Governance & Compliance

Establish enterprise-grade security architecture:

IAM strategy, fine-grained data access, encryption with KMS

Network isolation, private connectivity, cross-account patterns

Drive governance frameworks for:

Data cataloging, lineage, classification, and access control

Regulatory compliance (PII, financial, or industry-specific constraints)

Partner with Security and Risk teams to ensure alignment with enterprise policies.

Reliability, Performance & Cost Excellence

Embed AWS Well-Architected Framework principles into all data solutions.

Lead performance optimization and cost management (FinOps) initiatives.

Define observability standards for data pipelines and analytics workloads.

Technical Leadership & Mentorship

Serve as principal technical reviewer for major initiatives and programs.

Mentor architects and senior engineers; coach teams on architectural thinking.

Drive architecture communities of practice, design forums, and knowledge sharing.

Stakeholder Engagement

Communicate complex architectural concepts to executive and non-technical audiences.

Translate business objectives into scalable, future-proof data architectures.

Influence roadmap prioritization and investment decisions.

Required Qualifications (Must-Have)

12+ years in data, analytics, or platform engineering; 8+ years on AWS.

Proven experience leading enterprise-scale data & analytics architectures.

Deep hands-on expertise with AWS data services:

S3, Lake Formation, Glue, Athena, Redshift, EMR, Kinesis/MSK

Strong understanding of:

Distributed systems and large-scale data processing

Batch and streaming architectures

Data governance, quality, and metadata management

Proficiency in SQL and Python / Scala / Java (hands-on design and review).

Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, or CDK).

Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and lead across org boundaries.

Exceptional communication and architectural storytelling skills.

Preferred Qualifications (Nice-to-Have)

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional

AWS Certified Data Analytics – Specialty

Experience with:

Apache Iceberg, Hudi, Delta Lakedbt, Airflow/MWAA, CI/CD for data platforms

ML/AI enablement on AWS (SageMaker, feature stores)

Experience in regulated or large enterprise environments.

Behavioral Expectations (Principal Bar)

Thinks years ahead, not just project-to-project

Makes sound trade-offs balancing speed, scale, cost, and risk

Raises the technical bar across the organization

Comfortable challenging assumptions and driving change

Acts as a steward of long-term platform health