Data Solutions Architect – Snowflake

Data Solutions Architect – Snowflake

6 -12 Months contract –   extension   

Vienna, VA  22182

Job Description:

Data Solutions Architect – Snowflake

Role Summary

• We are seeking an experienced Data Solutions Architect to translate enterprise and domain-level information models into concrete, implementable data solution architectures on Snowflake.
• This role sits at the intersection of strategy and hands-on delivery: the ideal candidate is equally comfortable advising on architectural direction and trade-offs with business and technology leadership and rolling up their sleeves to design and validate the underlying Snowflake architecture themselves.
• Working closely with an Information Architect and directly with application development teams, this person will turn conceptual and logical domain models into a working technical architecture, beginning with a foundational initiative to design the data solution architecture for a new application capability.

Key Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end data solution architectures on Snowflake — ingestion, transformation, storage, and consumption — that implement the enterprise information model for priority application initiatives.
• Serve as a hands-on Snowflake practitioner: directly design, configure, and prototype architecture components (schema design, warehouse and access model, pipeline patterns) rather than operating in a purely advisory capacity.
• Partner with the Information Architect to ensure solution architectures faithfully reflect enterprise domain models, taxonomies, and standards, and to surface where implementation realities should inform the model.
• Translate business and architectural strategy into implementation-ready technical designs and translate implementation constraints back into terms business and architecture stakeholders can act on — moving fluidly between the two.
• Work directly with application development teams to implement and validate the physical data architecture supporting new applications, beginning with the Trade Exception Management application.
• Define reusable Snowflake architecture patterns and standards — data layering, security and access model, and performance/cost design principles — for adoption across application development teams.
• Evaluate and advise on architecture trade-offs (performance, cost, scalability, governance) at both a strategic/roadmap level and a detailed implementation level.
• Support integration between the Snowflake-based solution architecture and existing enterprise systems, platforms, and data flows.
• Participate in architecture review boards and governance forums, presenting solution architecture designs and recommendations.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor''s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of experience in data architecture or data engineering, including direct responsibility for designing end-to-end data solution architectures.
• Current, hands-on practitioner-level experience with Snowflake — able to design, build, and troubleshoot within the platform directly, not solely at an advisory or oversight level.
• Demonstrated ability to operate at both a strategic/architectural level and a detailed implementation level, and to shift fluidly between the two depending on the audience.
• Experience partnering directly with application development teams to implement solution architecture designs in support of active initiatives.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to explain technical architecture decisions in business terms and to translate business and strategic direction into technical designs.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience designing data solution architectures within financial services or another regulated industry.
• Experience aligning a Snowflake-based architecture with an enterprise information model, taxonomy, or metadata/governance framework.
• Familiarity with data pipeline and orchestration tooling commonly used in Snowflake-based architectures.
• Experience advising on Snowflake cost optimization and performance tuning at scale.
• Exposure to enterprise integration patterns and how a Snowflake-based architecture fits within a broader application and systems landscape.