Senior data architect

GCS Recruitment; Sint-Joost-ten-Node; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

GCS Recruitment is seeking an experienced Snowflake Data Architect to design, govern, and optimize scalable cloud data platforms. You will define data models, ingestion patterns, and security controls while collaborating with data engineers and business stakeholders.

The role emphasizes modern data architectures, real-time and batch integration, and best practices for Snowflake performance, data quality, and metadata management.

Qualifications

• Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale data platforms.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Snowflake and its architecture.
• Strong understanding of data warehousing, dimensional modelling, data lakes, data lakehouses, and modern cloud data architectures.
• Experience with SQL and database technologies.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable, secure, and high-performance data architectures using Snowflake.
• Define enterprise data architecture, data models, data flows, integration patterns, and technology standards.
• Develop conceptual, logical, and physical data models aligned with business and analytical requirements.
• Design Snowflake databases, schemas, tables, views, stages, streams, tasks, and other platform components.
• Define and implement data ingestion and integration patterns for batch and real-time data.
• Develop and optimise ELT/ETL pipelines integrating data from a variety of source systems.
• Establish best practices for Snowflake performance optimisation, workload management, storage, and compute utilisation.
• Design security and access-control frameworks, including roles, privileges, data masking, row-level security, and other governance capabilities.
• Define data governance, metadata management, data quality, lineage, and lifecycle management practices.
• Support data migration and modernisation initiatives, including migration from legacy data warehouses and on-premises platforms to Snowflake.
• Evaluate and recommend appropriate Snowflake features and cloud technologies based on business and technical requirements.
• Collaborate with data engineering teams to establish development, deployment, and operational standards.
• Contribute to CI/CD, DevOps, automation, and infrastructure-as-code practices for data platforms.
• Troubleshoot complex architectural, performance, scalability, and data integration issues.
• Produce and maintain architecture documentation, standards, design patterns, and technical specifications.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to data engineers and other technical team members.
• Stay current with developments in Snowflake, cloud data platforms, data engineering, and modern data architecture.

Skills

Snowflake

Data architecture

Cloud platforms

SQL

ETL/ELT

Data governance

dbt

Apache Airflow

Tools

AWS

Azure

Google Cloud

Azure Data Factory

AWS Glue

Job description

Snowflake Data Architect

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced Snowflake Data Architect to design, develop, and govern scalable, secure, and high-performing cloud data platforms. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Snowflake, data architecture, cloud technologies, data modelling, and modern data engineering practices.

The Snowflake Data Architect will work closely with data engineers, analysts, business stakeholders, and technology teams to define data architecture strategies and deliver robust data solutions that support analytics, reporting, data science, and business intelligence initiatives.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable, secure, and high-performance data architectures using Snowflake.
• Define enterprise data architecture, data models, data flows, integration patterns, and technology standards.
• Develop conceptual, logical, and physical data models aligned with business and analytical requirements.
• Design Snowflake databases, schemas, tables, views, stages, streams, tasks, and other platform components.
• Define and implement data ingestion and integration patterns for batch and real-time data.
• Develop and optimise ELT/ETL pipelines integrating data from a variety of source systems.
• Establish best practices for Snowflake performance optimisation, workload management, storage, and compute utilisation.
• Design security and access-control frameworks, including roles, privileges, data masking, row-level security, and other governance capabilities.
• Define data governance, metadata management, data quality, lineage, and lifecycle management practices.
• Support data migration and modernisation initiatives, including migration from legacy data warehouses and on-premises platforms to Snowflake.
• Evaluate and recommend appropriate Snowflake features and cloud technologies based on business and technical requirements.
• Collaborate with data engineering teams to establish development, deployment, and operational standards.
• Contribute to CI/CD, DevOps, automation, and infrastructure-as-code practices for data platforms.
• Troubleshoot complex architectural, performance, scalability, and data integration issues.
• Produce and maintain architecture documentation, standards, design patterns, and technical specifications.
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring to data engineers and other technical team members.
• Stay current with developments in Snowflake, cloud data platforms, data engineering, and modern data architecture.

Required Skills and Experience

• Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale data platforms.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Snowflake and its architecture.
• Strong understanding of data warehousing, dimensional modelling, data lakes, data lakehouses, and modern cloud data architectures.
• Experience with SQL and database technologies.
• Strong understanding of ETL/ELT concepts and data integration patterns.
• Experience with cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Knowledge of data security, governance, privacy, and access-control principles.
• Experience with data modelling tools and techniques.
• Understanding of distributed data processing and large-scale data environments.
• Experience working with APIs, databases, files, streaming platforms, and other data sources.
• Familiarity with data engineering and orchestration technologies such as dbt, Apache Airflow, Azure Data Factory, AWS Glue, or similar tools.
• Experience with source control, CI/CD, and DevOps practices.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
• Ability to translate business requirements into scalable technical architecture.

Desirable Skills

• Snowflake certifications or relevant cloud certifications.
• Experience with Snowflake features such as Snowpipe, Snowpipe Streaming, Streams, Tasks, Dynamic Tables, Snowpark, and Secure Data Sharing.
• Experience implementing data mesh, data fabric, or lakehouse architectures.
• Experience with real-time/streaming technologies such as Kafka.
• Experience with dbt and modern analytics engineering practices.
• Knowledge of data cataloguing

GCS is acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.