Data Architect

Job Title: Data Architect – Digital Banking
Location: Dallas TX (Remote)
Duration: Contract

Role Overview

We are seeking a Banking Data Architect & Product Manager with deep banking domain expertise to design, secure, and scale our enterprise Lakehouse platform. You will lead the transition from legacy systems to a high-throughput, cloud-native Databricks architecture powering real-time payments, risk decisioning, fraud detection, and regulatory reporting.

Key Responsibilities

· Lakehouse Strategy & Delivery: Architect and implement an enterprise-grade Lakehouse using Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and Databricks SQL Serverless, aligned with banking standards (BIAN, FIBO, ISO 20022).

· Streaming & Core Integration: Build ultra-low-latency ingestion pipelines (Structured Streaming, Auto Loader) connecting core ledgers, card networks, and instant payment rails (FedNow, RTP, ACH, Faster Payments).

· Risk & Financial Crime Systems: Power sub-second feature stores and downstream analytics for real-time AML monitoring, sanctions screening, fraud prevention, and credit underwriting.

· Regulatory Compliance & Lineage: Curate Gold-layer reporting models ensuring deterministic, audit-ready submissions for Basel III/IV, BCBS 239, CCAR, and CECL/IFRS 9.

· Zero-Trust Security & Governance: Enforce ABAC/RBAC, dynamic data masking, and cryptographic tokenization for PAN and PII in strict compliance with PCI-DSS 4.0, GLBA, and GDPR.

· Platform Optimization & FinOps: Maximize cluster compute efficiency (Photon engine, serverless) to meet tight financial settlement SLAs (T+0/T+1) while managing cloud TCO.

Key Requirements

· Banking Domain Experience: 4+ years of data architecture experience within a digital bank, retail/commercial bank, or core FinTech. Solid understanding of double-entry ledgers, payment settlement lifecycles, and banking regulatory frameworks.

· Product Manager: Translate business requirements to specs for Data products design and build on Databricks platform, prioritize backlog and delivery roadmap collaboratively with business stakeholders.

· Databricks Expertise: Minimum 3 years of experience in designing and operating production Databricks environments (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, Structured Streaming, PySpark).

· Cloud & Networking: Advanced knowledge of AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform financial landing zones with strict isolation (PrivateLink, VPC/VNet peering, zero public egress).

· DevOps & IaC: Strong proficiency with Terraform, Databricks Asset Bundles (DABs), and automated CI/CD deployment pipelines.

· Certifications (Preferred): Databricks Certified Solutions Architect / Data Engineer Professional, or Cloud Solutions Architect (AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platform).