Microsoft Fabric Data Architect

Microsoft Fabric Data Architect (DataStage to Fabric Migration)
100% Remote
Contract Opportunity 

About the role:
The client is looking for a hands-on Data Architect to lead the migration of an existing IBM DataStage ETL estate to Microsoft Fabric. The architect will own the target-state design, the migration approach, and delivery guidance for the engineering team, from assessment through cutover. 

Key responsibilities:

• Assess the current DataStage landscape, including jobs, sequences, transformers, parameter sets, and dependencies, and build a migration inventory and complexity map.
• Design the target architecture on Microsoft Fabric: OneLake, Lakehouse/Warehouse, Data Factory pipelines, Dataflows Gen2, and Spark notebooks.
• Define migration patterns that map DataStage stages and logic to Fabric equivalents, plus a strategy for rewrite, re-platform, or retire.
• Set standards for data modeling (medallion/layered architecture), naming, orchestration, error handling, and performance tuning.
• Plan and oversee data validation and reconciliation between legacy and target outputs, parallel runs, and cutover.
• Establish governance, security, and lineage (workspace strategy, access control, Purview integration).
• Set up CI/CD and deployment practices for Fabric artifacts (Git integration, deployment pipelines).
• Guide and review the work of data engineers, and act as the technical point of contact for client stakeholders.

Must-have skills:

• 12+ years in data engineering/ETL, with 3+ years in a data architect role.
• Strong hands-on experience with Microsoft Fabric (Lakehouse, Warehouse, Data Factory pipelines, notebooks, OneLake).
• Solid working knowledge of IBM DataStage: parallel jobs, sequences, transformer logic, and reading or reverse-engineering existing jobs.
• Proven experience delivering at least one ETL migration to a cloud platform.
• Strong SQL and PySpark/Spark SQL.
• Data modeling expertise (dimensional, medallion).

Good to have:

• Azure Synapse, Azure Data Factory, or Databricks experience.
• Power BI with Direct Lake / semantic models.
• Microsoft Purview, Azure DevOps/GitHub CI/CD.
• Certifications: DP-600 (Fabric Analytics Engineer), DP-700 (Fabric Data Engineer), or Azure Data Engineer/Architect.
• Experience with automated migration or code-conversion tools.