Contract DPaaS Platform Architect (Databricks) - Hybrid

VARITE INC; San Jose (CA); Hybrid; USD 152,000 - 169,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Retirement Plans

Legal Service Plans

Job summary

VARITE is seeking a Contract Platform Architect for DPaaS (Databricks-based) in San Jose, CA on a hybrid schedule. The 4-month engagement will backfill an architecture lead, ensuring continuity of in-flight initiatives and making technical decisions.

You will guide data platform migrations, enforce governance, and collaborate with DevOps/DataOps to keep workstreams moving. Strong SQL, Spark, and cloud infra experience are essential.

Qualifications

• Hands-on data/platform architect experience on Databricks with Unity Catalog governance at enterprise scale.
• Strong background in data platform migrations (SQL Server-to-lakehouse or cloud).
• Solid grasp of data governance: environment segregation, compute cost management, engineering standards, duplicate-data prevention.
• Able to ramp quickly into an in-flight environment given the fixed-term engagement.
• Strong written communication for documenting decisions and a clean handoff.
• Hands-on Spark (PySpark or Scala) and Delta Lake for pipeline design, performance tuning, troubleshooting at production scale.
• Advanced SQL: multi-schema, multi-workspace environments.
• Working knowledge of cloud infra under Databricks (Azure or AWS).
• Experience with orchestration/CI-CD tooling for data pipelines (Databricks Workflows/Jobs, Airflow, Azure DevOps).
• Familiarity with Unity Catalog access controls, lineage, and metadata management.
• Understands Databricks compute cost drivers to advise on cost visibility.
• Experience integrating/migrating ERP-adjacent source systems (e.g., SAP/HANA) into a lakehouse architecture.

Responsibilities

• Serve as architecture point of contact for DPaaS (Databricks + Unity Catalog) during coverage, maintaining continuity on in-flight decisions.
• Support and unblock the SQL Server-to-Databricks migration, incl. sequencing tied to the SAP HANA cloud (RISE) migration deadline.
• Apply and enforce the team's Databricks governance framework (5 pillars): duplicate-data prevention, environment segregation, compute selection, engineering standards, cost visibility.
• Review/advise on schema, pipeline, and compute design to prevent recurrence of known anti-patterns.
• Partner with DevOps, DataOps, and platform support leads to keep architecture-dependent workstreams moving.
• Advise on open platform decisions (e.g., BI tooling, compute-tier questions); final calls remain with the permanent architecture lead and director.
• Document decisions, rationale, and open issues for smooth handoff back to the returning architect.

Skills

Databricks

Unity Catalog

SQL

Spark

PySpark

Scala

Delta Lake

CI/CD

Airflow

Azure

AWS

Data governance

ERP migrations

Tools

Databricks

Azure DevOps

Airflow

SAP HANA

Job description

VARITE is seeking a Contract Platform Architect for DPaaS (Databricks-based) in San Jose, CA on a hybrid schedule. The 4-month engagement will backfill an architecture lead, ensuring continuity of in-flight initiatives and making technical decisions.

You will guide data platform migrations, enforce governance, and collaborate with DevOps/DataOps to keep workstreams moving. Strong SQL, Spark, and cloud infra experience are essential.