Data Architect

Kallidus Ltd; West of England; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

27 days annual leave

Full tech setup

Growth & development support

Flexible hybrid work

Job summary

Kallidus is hiring a Data Architect to own the architecture of two data platforms: a Snowflake-based Customer Intelligence platform and an SaaS-embedded data platform. You will shape architecture from inception, drive data governance, and work across product and engineering to deliver value through analytics, AI features and reporting.

Join a growing Architecture function and influence the data strategy while ensuring security, scalability and a coherent data roadmap for customers and the

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing data architecture on Snowflake (or similar cloud platform) in production.
• Experience designing data-rich distributed systems, ideally multi-tenant SaaS.
• Experience designing data integrations — APIs, event-driven, batch; selecting the right pattern.
• Strong SQL and ELT/ETL tooling knowledge (Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt) with performance, compute and security awareness.
• Strong data governance knowledge with quality, lineage, access control and stewardship.
• Familiarity with GDPR and data privacy in a customer data context.
• Confident with senior stakeholders and translating needs into requirements.
• Experience mentoring or guiding others without formal line management.

Responsibilities

• Own the target-state architecture and roadmap for both data platforms, split between them.
• Review and optimise existing data solutions for performance, cost, reliability and maintainability.
• Define and maintain data modelling standards, naming conventions and documentation.
• Establish and champion data governance practices and operational processes.
• Govern architectural decisions through ADR process across platforms.
• Identify and champion opportunities to use AI tools to improve workflows.
• Own data models, ingestion, transformation and storage architectures for the team.
• Define approach for integrating data from multiple systems into a unified warehouse.
• Define data catalogues and a semantic layer with stakeholders.
• Design self-serve query layer for business users and data specialists.
• Lead ELT/ETL pipelines and grow data engineering capability.

Skills

Snowflake

Multi-tenant SaaS

SQL

ELT/ETL

Fivetran

Airbyte

dbt

Data governance

GDPR

APIs / event-driven

ADR governance

Azure

Terraform

Power BI

Tools

Azure

Terraform

Job description

Kallidus is a leading SaaS provider of learning, performance, and talent management solutions. Our award-winning platform helps hundreds of organisations worldwide empower their people to perform at their best — from simplifying compliance to driving skills development and measurable business outcomes.

We are a technology company, not just a company that "does technology". We build it ourselves, we own it entirely, and the people who lead that work have real influence over how it evolves. Come build, grow and make a difference!

The role

The Data Architect owns the architecture of Kallidus’s data platforms. Your initial focus will be owning the architecture of two data platforms:

• Customer Intelligence platform (internal business intelligence): our Snowflake-based platform that brings data from multiple business systems together into a well-governed environment, so we can better understand our customers, identify those at risk of leaving, and spot opportunities to grow accounts. This is our highest-priority current data project. Snowflake is new to Kallidus, so you’ll have specialist support during initial delivery, and will help build Snowflake capability across the existing data team.
• SaaS-embedded data platform (customer-facing): a data platform embedded in our SaaS product, powering the reporting, analytics, AI and bulk data extraction capabilities we offer our customers. This platform is still in inception, so you’ll have the chance to shape its architecture from the ground up and make a significant impact on how our customers get value from their data.

Owning both lets you set a coherent direction for how data serves Kallidus and our customers. Beyond these, you should expect to take on wider architecture work, including non-data projects, as business needs evolve.

We value pragmatic, right-sized design: platforms built for the scale we have today, with room to grow as our customers’ needs do. You’ll join a small, growing Architecture function, with real scope to grow into a wider data strategy role over time.

Key responsibilities

Across both platforms

• Own the target-state architecture and roadmap for both data platforms, with your time and focus split between them
• Review and optimise existing data solutions for performance, cost, reliability and maintainability, driving continuous improvement
• Define and maintain data modelling standards, naming conventions and documentation, applied consistently across both platforms
• Establish and champion data governance practices — including data quality, lineage, access control, security and pseudonymisation of sensitive data — and own the ongoing operational processes that keep the platforms running well
• Govern architectural decisions through our Architecture Decision Record (ADR) process, working with the teams building on each platform
• Identify and champion opportunities to use AI tools to improve ways of working within the role and team
• Own the architectural design — data models, ingestion, transformation and storage layers — for the team to build to
• Define the approach for integrating data from multiple business systems into a unified, governed warehouse
• Own the definition of data catalogues and a semantic layer, working with stakeholders across the business
• Design the approach for a self-serve query layer, including conversational and AI-driven interfaces, for both business users and data specialists
• Act as technical lead for the team implementing ELT/ETL pipelines, and support the development of data engineering capability within the existing team

SaaS-embedded data platform

• Shape the platform’s architecture from inception, helping define its scope, target state and delivery roadmap
• Design how customer data flows from our core SaaS systems into the platform, and how it is served back to customers through in-product reporting, analytics, AI features and bulk data extraction
• Design for multi-tenancy from the outset, including tenant data isolation, performance at scale and data residency
• Work with Product and Engineering teams to turn customer-facing data capabilities into a coherent, evolvable architecture
• Work closely with other architects in the function, including future hires — agreeing clear interfaces with the systems your platforms depend on, and supporting each other
• Work as a peer to development team leads, shaping technical decisions together — while holding final accountability for architectural decisions on your platforms
• Partner with Data Science, AI, BI and Product teams to build production-ready data foundations that support reporting, dashboards and predictive/ML use cases

Skills, experience and behaviours

Essential skills and experience

Technical

• Proven experience designing and implementing data architecture on Snowflake (or a comparable cloud platform) in production, including data modelling (dimensional/medallion) and integration from multiple source systems
• Experience designing data-rich distributed systems, ideally multi-tenant SaaS
• Experience designing application and data integrations — APIs, event-driven, batch and Change Data Capture (CDC) — and choosing the right pattern for each
• Strong SQL and ELT/ETL tooling knowledge (such as Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt), with an understanding of performance, cost/compute and security in cloud data platforms
• Strong understanding of data governance in practice — data quality, lineage, access control, pseudonymisation and stewardship models
• Familiarity with GDPR and data privacy in a customer data context

Stakeholder and people

• Confident with senior stakeholders, building trust and influence without formal authority
• Skilled at getting to the heart of business problems — asking the right questions, challenging assumptions and turning needs into clear requirements and trade-offs
• Able to build consensus across teams and bring people with you
• Able to explain technical choices clearly to any audience, written or spoken
• Experience providing technical leadership or mentorship, without formal line management

Desirable skills and experience

• Experience shaping a new data platform or product capability from inception
• Experience designing self-serve or conversational/AI-driven query solutions over a data warehouse, and working with BI tools such as Power BI
• Experience with ADRs or a similar architecture governance practice
• Experience with Microsoft Azure and infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform

What we offer

• A permanent role owning the architecture of two data platforms — one in delivery, one in inception — with a clear path to greater scope and seniority
• Hybrid working, and a supportive, collaborative culture within a growing Architecture function

27 days of annual leave

Full tech setup

Support for your ongoing growth & development

Enhanced Family Leave

Flexible, hybrid approach to work

Kallidus is a disability confident employer. We work hard to build an explicitly inclusive space where everybody belongs. Kallidus is a supportive, caring, and enjoyable working environment for all our people, and we are committed to furthering the diversity of our teams.

Diversity brings innovation and creativity through different views, backgrounds, and opinions; as a people-first organisation, it’s crucial that our teams reflect global diversity.
Our people are the heart of our success, and diversity is what drives that Kallidus positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, region or belief, marital status, pregnancy or maternity.

Proud member of the Disability Confident employer scheme.