Data Architect

Position Overview

The Data Engineering & Power BI Architect is a strategic technical leader responsible for architecting scalable data platforms, ELT pipelines, semantic models, and enterprise-grade analytics solutions.

This role focuses on data warehouse design, backend modeling, and DAX optimization to enable high performance, governance, and self-service BI across the organization.

The Architect will serve as a technical advisor to Data Engineering and BI teams, ensuring solutions align with architectural standards, DevOps practices, and business strategy.

Key Responsibilities

1. Data Architecture & Engineering

• Design and optimize enterprise-grade data warehouse and ELT/ETL frameworks to ensure scalability and performance.
• Collaborate with analytics and business teams to enhance data models and promote data-driven decision-making.
• Define and enforce data modeling, lineage, and governance frameworks.
• Evaluate and implement open-source and vendor tools for data integration and observability.
• Develop CI/CD pipelines and testing automation for data and semantic deployments.
• Establish and communicate coding standards, reusability patterns, and best practices across teams.

2. Semantic Modeling & BI Architecture

• Design Power BI Tabular Models using Import, DirectQuery, and Hybrid storage modes.
• Implement composite models, aggregation tables, and calculation groups within Microsoft Fabric or similar architectures.
• Leverage Tabular Editor, ALM Toolkit, and Best Practice Analyzer to ensure model consistency and maintainability.
• Manage data refresh strategies, relationships, and partition design for optimal performance.

3. DAX Optimization & Security

• Author complex and reusable DAX measures for business domains.
• Optimize model performance using DAX Studio, VertiPaq Analyzer, and Performance Analyzer.
• Implement row-level and object-level security to protect sensitive data and meet compliance requirements.

4. Collaboration, Governance & Technical Leadership

• Provide architectural oversight and code reviews for Data Engineers and BI Developers.
• Document and maintain modeling conventions, reusable templates, and SOPs.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise data governance, metadata management, and Fabric service integration.
• Mentor teams on performance tuning, semantic modeling, and DevOps readiness.

5. Platform Integration & DevOps

• Operate within Azure DevOps / Git-based pipelines for automated build, test, and deploy.
• Ensure semantic models and ELT jobs are CI/CD-ready, version-controlled, and auditable.
• Collaborate with platform and infrastructure teams for access control, refresh orchestration, and automated monitoring.
• Integrate with Fabric, Lakehouse, and Delta Lake components to unify analytics layers.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or related field.
• Master's degree preferred.

Experience

• 7+ years designing and architecting data engineering and analytic systems.
• Deep experience with SQL, dimensional modeling, and cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Azure Synapse).
• Hands-on expertise in Power BI, Tabular Models, and DAX optimization.
• Proficient with Tabular Editor, ALM Toolkit, and model performance tools.
• Strong experience with ETL/ELT frameworks, Airflow, and Python scripting.
• Skilled in DevOps tools such as Git, Jenkins, Terraform, and Ansible.
• Proven ability to design data lake and data warehouse architectures on AWS or Azure.
• Familiarity with Fabric services such as Lakehouse, Delta Lake, and Semantic Link Labs.
• Experience building code-driven, automated infrastructure with observability and audit logging.

Skills & Competencies

• Expert in data modeling, DAX, and semantic architecture.
• Strong grasp of database optimization, ELT orchestration, and data governance.
• Advanced DevOps and CI/CD pipeline design capabilities.
• Excellent communication and mentoring skills for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Product-oriented mindset with the ability to translate business needs into scalable architectures.
• Independent, detail-oriented, and comfortable leading backend solution design.

Certifications

• Microsoft Fabric Certified (preferred).
• Azure Data Engineer / Architect certifications (a plus).