Data Architect

Role: Data Architect

Location: SFO, CA (Onsite)
Employment Type: Full-Time with CriticalRiver
Experience: 15+ Years

 About the Role

CriticalRiver is seeking a highly experienced Data Architect to lead the design and delivery of enterprise-scale data platforms, cloud data ecosystems, analytics solutions, and modern data engineering architectures. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in Data Architecture, Data Engineering, Snowflake and/or Databricks, with exposure to AI/ML and Generative AI technologies.

 Key Responsibilities

• Design and own enterprise data architectures across Data Lakes, Lakehouses, Data Warehouses, and Analytics Platforms.
• Architect scalable cloud data solutions using Snowflake, Databricks, Microsoft Fabric, BigQuery, Redshift, and Azure Synapse.
• Build modern ETL/ELT, CDC, batch, real-time, and streaming data pipelines using Python, SQL, Spark, Kafka, dbt, Airflow, and related technologies.
• Define data modeling standards including Dimensional Modeling, Data Vault, and Semantic Models.
• Lead cloud modernization and large-scale data migration initiatives across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
• Implement data governance, metadata management, data quality, lineage, security, and compliance frameworks.
• Enable enterprise BI and analytics using Power BI, Tableau, Looker, ThoughtSpot, and other modern analytics platforms.
• Collaborate with AI/ML teams to integrate LLMs, RAG, Vector Databases, AI Agents, and Generative AI capabilities into enterprise data platforms.
• Provide architecture leadership, client consulting, solution design, technical governance, presales support, and team mentoring.

 Required Skills

• 15+ years in Data Engineering, Data Architecture, Cloud Data Platforms, and Analytics.
• Strong hands-on expertise in Python, SQL, Apache Spark, Snowpark, ETL/ELT, Data Modeling, and Data Governance.
• Deep experience with Snowflake and/or Databricks.
• Expertise in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform cloud platforms.
• Experience with Kafka, Airflow, Dagster, dbt, Delta Lake, Delta Live Tables, ADF, AWS Glue, Fivetran, Informatica, or MuleSoft.
• Strong understanding of Data Quality, Metadata Management, Lineage, Security, and Governance.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, consulting, and leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Snowflake Horizon, Databricks Unity Catalog, Cortex AI, or Mosaic AI.
• Exposure to LLMs, RAG, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Vertex AI, SageMaker, MLflow, Vector Databases, and AI Agents.
• Certifications in AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Snowflake, or Databricks.
• Background in consulting and regulated industries such as Healthcare, Retail, or BFSI.