Lead Snowflake Data Architect

Lead Snowflake Data Architect

Location:Dallas, TX area preferred (hybrid)

Type:Contract

We're looking for a senior Snowflake architect to lead a current-state assessment of an enterprise data platform built on Snowflake and Informatica. You'll inventory the existing data landscape and identify where the architecture falls short. Then you'll deliver a target-state blueprint and platform strategy the client can act on. This is a client-facing role. You need to go deep on technical design and explain your recommendations clearly to executives.

Responsibilities

•Inventory data sources, pipelines, integrations, data models, and downstream consumers, and document the current-state architecture.

•Assess the existing Snowflake and Informatica implementation for technical debt, scalability limits, and security and governance gaps.

•Define the target-state architecture and platform strategy. This covers ingestion, storage, transformation, sharing, governance, and consumption.

•Recommend standard ingestion patterns (batch, CDC, streaming, API, file-based) and data retention and archival strategies for long-lived historical data.

•Evaluate whether domain-oriented or Data Mesh approaches would benefit the organization, and recommend where they fit and where they don't.

Required

•10+ years in data architecture or data engineering, including 4+ years designing enterprise solutions on Snowflake.

•Hands-on experience with Informatica IDMC (Intelligent Data Management Cloud) and/or Informatica Data Quality (IDQ) integrated with Snowflake.

•Deep knowledge of Snowflake architecture: virtual warehouses, stages, Snowpipe, Streams and Tasks, secure data sharing, RBAC, masking, and row-level security.

•Experience conducting current-state assessments and producing target-state architectures and roadmaps.

•Strong background in data modeling, metadata management, lineage, and data quality.

•Cloud data architecture experience on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.

•Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting to executive stakeholders.

Highly Desired

•SnowPro Advanced: Architect certification.

•Experience designing or evaluating Data Mesh or domain-oriented architectures (data products, data contracts, federated governance). The emphasis is on judging when these approaches fit.

•Working knowledge of other lakehouse platforms such as Databricks or Microsoft Fabric.

•Experience with open table formats such as Apache Iceberg, and with tiered storage for large historical datasets.

•Experience with data catalogs such as Collibra, Alation, or Microsoft Purview.

•Consulting or advisory experience.