Principal Data Architect

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Establish and lead the enterprise data architecture vision focused on a domain-oriented data mesh.

• Determine the technical direction regarding data ownership, production, discovery, and consumption throughout the organization.

• Create a multi-year roadmap for both business and engineering leaders.

• Collaborate with domain teams, platform engineering, security, and the executive team.

• Define the target-state data architecture based on the principles of data mesh.

• Establish domain boundaries and ownership models utilizing domain-driven design and bounded contexts.

• Design reference architectures for data products, encompassing ingestion, storage, transformation, serving, and consumption.

• Specify standards for data products, which include interfaces, SLAs and SLOs, schemas and contracts, metadata, lineage, quality checks, and access policies.

• Guide the design of a self-serve data platform.

• Own the long-term data architecture vision and phased roadmap.

• Construct the business case and investment narrative for executive stakeholders.

• Develop a maturity model and adoption strategy.

• Design federated governance for security, privacy, quality, interoperability, and cataloging.

• Define enterprise canonical models, shared reference data, and cross-domain interoperability patterns.

• Collaborate with security, privacy, and compliance teams on regulatory obligations.

• Chair the architecture review forum and act as the escalation point for cross-domain design decisions.

• Mentor architects and senior engineers and coach domain teams in data product methodologies.

• Evaluate and select technologies, conduct proofs of concept, and publish architecture decision records.

• Represent the data architecture vision internally and, where appropriate, to customers, partners, and industry peers.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 12 years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or platform architecture.

• A minimum of 3 years in a principal, staff, or enterprise architect role.

• Proven experience in designing or leading a data mesh, data product, or domain-oriented data architecture, ideally through at least one production rollout.

• Extensive knowledge of modern data stack patterns, including cloud data warehouses and lakehouses such as Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Redshift.

• Familiarity with open table formats such as Iceberg, Delta, or Hudi.

• Understanding of streaming technologies including Kafka, Flink, or Spark Structured Streaming.

• Strong skills in data modeling across dimensional, data vault, event-driven, and domain models.

• Practical experience with data contracts, schema management, metadata and catalog tools, lineage, as well as data quality and observability frameworks.

• Competent in governance, security, and privacy architecture, including policy-as-code, fine-grained access control, and data classification.

• Ability to translate architecture into a roadmap and business case, gaining support from executives and engineering leaders.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Experience with at least one major cloud platform: AWS, Azure, or GCP.

• Proficiency in SQL and at least one general-purpose programming language such as Python, Scala, or Java.

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

• GEICO is open to sponsoring a new qualified applicant for employment authorization for this position.

🏝️ Benefits

• Customized development programs.

• Mentorship opportunities.

• Assistance with certification.

• Competitive salary.

• Comprehensive benefits.

• Flexibility to support your well-being and future.

• GEICO Pledge: Great Company, Great Culture, Great Rewards, and Great Careers.

• Reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities.