Lead Databricks Data Architect for AI & Lakehouse

wk; Greater London; On-site; GBP 85,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

wk is seeking a Principal Data Architect to define and own the data architecture for a strategic transformation. You will lead the design of a modern Databricks lakehouse and medallion patterns, enabling secure, scalable data use across a complex product landscape.

You will shape canonical and semantic data models, govern data pipelines, and drive privacy-preserving patterns for AI/analytics workloads, while mentoring engineers and aligning with product and security leaders.

Qualifications

• Significant experience as a Data Architect or similar senior technical leader.
• Advanced, hands-on Databricks experience in production environments.
• Proven ownership of modern data platforms from architecture to delivery.
• Strong experience in data privacy, security and governance patterns.
• Data-modelling expertise across canonical and dimensional models.
• Experience with batch and real-time data integration and APIs.

Responsibilities

• Define target data architecture, standards and technical roadmap.
• Design a Databricks lakehouse foundation for secure, scalable data use across products.
• Establish medallion patterns (Bronze/Silver/Gold) for data pipelines.
• Design canonical, dimensional and semantic data models for interoperability.
• Architect data integration using batch, streaming, APIs and CDC.
• Design privacy-preserving data capabilities for AI workloads.
• Create prototypes, review designs, and guide performance optimization.
• Build production-ready solutions with governance, observability and cost control.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, security and business leaders to translate needs into plans.
• Mentor data engineers and promote reusable platform capabilities.

Skills

Databricks lakehouse

Python/SQL/Scala/Java

Azure data services

Data modelling

Data governance

Security/privacy

Architectural leadership

Mentoring engineers

Tools

dbt

Kafka

Airflow

Terraform

Power BI

Tableau

Collibra/Microsoft Purview

Job description

wk is seeking a Principal Data Architect to define and own the data architecture for a strategic transformation. You will lead the design of a modern Databricks lakehouse and medallion patterns, enabling secure, scalable data use across a complex product landscape.

You will shape canonical and semantic data models, govern data pipelines, and drive privacy-preserving patterns for AI/analytics workloads, while mentoring engineers and aligning with product and security leaders.