Data Architect

EXL; Pittsburgh (Allegheny County); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

EXL is seeking an experienced Data Architect to lead the design and implementation of enterprise data platforms built on object storage and Apache Iceberg. You will architect migrations from traditional relational and analytic databases into modern lakehouse environments and craft scalable ingestion for batch, streaming, and near real-time data loads.

The ideal candidate has hands-on Iceberg expertise, data modeling, metadata management, and a strong background in security and governance across

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required or equivalent in Computer Science or related field.
• 5+ years of Data Architecture/Engineering experience.
• Hands-on Iceberg experience in enterprise environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture, design, and implementation of data platforms using Object Storage and Iceberg.
• Develop migration plans from relational databases and Hadoop into Iceberg-based lakehouses.
• Design scalable ingestion for batch, streaming, and near real-time loads.
• Understand Iceberg catalogs, namespaces, partitioning, and schema evolution.
• Establish security, metadata, retention, and compliance best practices.
• Collaborate with data engineers, DBAs, and platform teams on migrations.
• Optimize Bronze/Silver/Gold data layers for lakehouse architectures.
• Evaluate data access and performance across Spark, Trino, Databricks, Snowflake, and more.
• Transition legacy ETL workloads to modern data engineering frameworks.

Skills

Data architecture

Data engineering

Iceberg

Object storage

Migration strategies

Metadata management

Data modeling

ETL architectures

Collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Apache Iceberg

Spark

Trino

Databricks

Snowflake

Postgres

Hadoop

Teradata

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Data Architect to help lead the design and implementation of next generation data platforms leveraging Object Storage and Apache Iceberg. This role will be responsible for architecting and executing large scale data migrations from traditional relational and analytical databases into modern lakehouse environments built on object storage and Iceberg catalogs.

The ideal candidate will have hands on experience designing enterprise data architectures, migrating data from platforms such as Hadoop, Teradata, Oracle, and other database technologies into object storage platforms. The candidate must possess deep expertise in Apache Iceberg, metadata management, data modeling, ingestion frameworks, and large-scale migration strategies.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and implementation of enterprise data platforms utilizing Object Storage and Apache Iceberg.
• Develop migration strategies and execution plans for moving data from relational databases, data warehouses, and Hadoop ecosystems into Iceberg based architectures.
• Design scalable ingestion frameworks to support batch, streaming, and near real-time data loads into object storage.
• Have deep understanding of Iceberg catalog structures, namespaces, partitioning strategies, schema evolution, and data lifecycle management.
• Establish best practices for security, metadata management, retention, and regulatory compliance.
• Collaborate with application teams, data engineers, DBAs, and platform teams to assess migration readiness and modernize legacy workloads.
• Optimize data models supporting Bronze, Silver, and Gold data layers within a lakehouse architecture.
• Evaluate and implement solutions for data access, query performance, and interoperability across compute engines such as Spark, Trino, Databricks, Snowflake, Teradata, or similar technologies.
• Guide the conversion of ETL workloads and legacy data integration processes into modern data engineering frameworks.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of experience in Data Architecture, Data Engineering, or Data Platform modernization.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience implementing Apache Iceberg in enterprise environments.
• Demonstrated experience migrating large scale datasets from traditional databases and data warehouses into object storage and lakehouse architectures.
• Strong understanding of Object Storage technologies (S3-compatible platforms, Pure storage etc.).
• Experience implementing and managing Iceberg catalogs
• Expertise in data modeling, partitioning strategies, schema evolution, metadata management, and performance optimization.
• Experience designing and implementing enterprise ETL architectures.
• Strong understanding of data governance, security, lineage, and compliance requirements.
• Understanding/Experience with Postgres database