Description The Data Architect is responsible for the design, development, and management of the organization's data infrastructure. This individual provides strategic recommendations to maximize the value of information assets via their creation, access and use by partnering with various stakeholders including non-technical and technical business users, data engineers, system engineers, and data analysts. Essential Functions * Interview business partners to understand their data needs and challenges, and use this information to design effective architecture and data models to support their needs * Determine modeling standards, guidelines, best practices and approved modeling techniques. Document these standards / guidelines; present to developers & analysts for buy in * Architect in hybrid environment including on-prem SQL Server, Azure Data Lake, Delta Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI * Research, identify and model the future state of the data architecture and provide data architecture best practices and guidelines. Document these best practices / guidelines; present to developers & analysts for buy in * Architect and design Northwest's migration from on-prem SQL Server to Azure data environment, creating a final hybrid model of on-prem and Azure data capabilities. Roadmap this journey; plan it and present to data analysts and developers for buy-in of execution. Ensure this future architecture supports business needs * Create and manage business information models in all their forms, including logical and physical data models, relational designs for structured data, cloud architecture, etc. per business requirements. Create and maintain the documentation of Northwest's existing data model * Provide direction in usage of in Azure Synapse SQL pools (both serverless and dedicated) and integrating Synapse with other Azure services * Work closely with DBAs to ensure structures are optimized for performance, reliability, and scalability, and ensure efficient database operations. Provide technical leadership for data engineering staff and the database administration team * Maintain critical information assets models in the enterprise information architecture (EIA) and follow the design guidelines and requirements of EIA * Enforce adherence to established data model and architecture by providing review of planned changes * Review current security and implement best practices for managing data in the cloud (RBAC, data encryption, etc.) and on-prem * Lead others in the analysis of data and analytics security requirements and solutions, and work with management to ensure that the confidentiality, integrity and availability of enterprise data and analytics assets are risk-managed * Research new technologies and evaluate their potential to add value in support of business, data team and operational needs * Ensure architecture evolves with emerging technology and business requirements * Participate in the development of ETL and ELT packages and pipelines using SSIS and ADF * Have ability to work in Python, and Synapse/ADF Pipelines, and be willing to put hands on keyboard to develop high complexity work * Must be able to utilize ServiceNow, and JIRA to document work requests to the team and monitor/track those request to closure * Work closely with Data Governance team and ensure data governance practices are implemented to allow sensitive information assets to be immediately identified and proactively restricted to minimize risk * Establish metrics for tracking and measuring data usage * Implement best practice for database optimization, including indexing and query performance tuning * Monitor data system performance, identify and address bottlenecks * Perform tuning improvements on lower performing data assets * Design framework for ongoing and evolving data reconciliation needs Additional Essential Functions * Ensure compliance