Senior Data Architect (8-month FTC)

Harnham; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

High-impact projects

Job summary

Harnham is hiring a Senior BI Data Architect in Manchester to lead the transformation of a large-scale data platform. In this hands-on role, you will take full ownership of the Databricks Lakehouse architecture, ensuring high performance and scalability while migrating legacy systems.

The successful candidate will have over 8 years in data engineering, deep experience with Databricks, and a strong SQL background. This position allows for flexible, remote-friendly working and offers the opportunity to work on impactful projects.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data engineering / data architecture.
• Deep experience with Databricks (Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog).
• Expert SQL and distributed computing knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement a governed Databricks Lakehouse architecture.
• Lead migration of complex legacy SQL logic into scalable pipelines.
• Build and optimise data transformation frameworks.

Skills

Data engineering

Data architecture

SQL

Databricks

Data modelling

Performance optimisation

BI semantic layers

CI/CD

Tools

Databricks Lakehouse

Spark

Looker

Git

Job description

I'm hiring a Senior BI Data Architect to join a global SaaS organisation and take ownership of a large‑scale data platform transformation.

This is a hands‑on architecture role sitting at the intersection of data engineering and BI - where your work will directly shape how the business uses data to make decisions.

A global technology business operating in the data and insights / research space, serving major clients worldwide and processing hundreds of millions of data points annually.

They are investing heavily in modernising their data platform and analytics capabilities, with a strong focus on performance, scalability, and self‑serve analytics.

The role: You'll take full ownership of the Databricks Lakehouse and BI architecture, leading the migration away from legacy systems while building a clean, governed and scalable platform.

This is not just a design role - you'll be deep in the detail, refactoring SQL, building pipelines, and optimising performance.

What you’ll be doing

• Design and implement a governed Databricks Lakehouse architecture (Unity Catalog, schemas, volumes)
• Lead migration of complex legacy SQL logic into modular, scalable pipelines
• Build and optimise data transformation frameworks using Spark / Python / SQL pipelines
• Act as the go‑to expert for query performance optimisation (Spark execution plans, data skew, joins)
• Design and implement dimensional data models (star / snowflake schemas)
• Architect the semantic layer for BI (Omni or similar tools like Looker)
• Build CI/CD pipelines to automate testing and deployment
• Work with stakeholders across Product, Finance, and Commercial teams to deliver scalable solutions

What you bring

Must‑haves

• 8+ years in data engineering / data architecture
• Deep experience with Databricks (Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog)
• Expert SQL and distributed computing knowledge
• Strong experience with data modelling (star / snowflake schemas)
• Proven experience migrating legacy data platforms
• Ability to optimise performance across large datasets
• Experience with modern BI semantic layers (e.g. Looker, Omni, Superset)
• Experience with CI/CD and version control (Git)

Nice to have

• Experience with dbt or similar transformation frameworks
• Exposure to AI/BI or natural language querying tools
• Experience in multi‑tenant or embedded analytics environments

Why this role

• Own and shape a modern data platform at scale
• High‑impact project with visible business outcomes
• Combination of architecture + hands‑on engineering
• Work on performance, scalability, and governance challenges
• Flexible, remote‑friendly working

What success looks like

• A clean, governed Lakehouse architecture
• Improved performance and reduced cost across the platform
• Scalable, reusable data pipelinesA robust semantic layer enabling self‑serve analytics across the business