This contract Senior Data Engineer / Data Architect position focuses on evaluating and improving an enterprise-scale data platform, with an emphasis on modernizing data lake environments. The role will help establish governance, security, data quality, and scalable data pipelines across a Microsoft-centric data ecosystem.
Role Focus
Assess current enterprise data environments and lead architecture improvements that strengthen scalability, performance, governance, and long-term platform modernization. The position also supports secure integration and pipeline delivery for reporting, analytics, and business operations, while contributing to technology evaluation across cloud data warehousing and lakehouse options.
Responsibilities
- Assess existing enterprise data environments, including data lake architecture, ingestion frameworks, transformation processes, security models, lineage, and operational support practices.
- Lead architecture reviews and recommend improvements to support scalability, performance, governance, and long-term platform modernization.
- Design, develop, and maintain robust data pipelines and integration solutions delivering trusted, high-quality data.
- Establish and enhance data governance processes, including metadata management, cataloging, data lineage, data quality monitoring, sensitivity classification, and access controls.
- Collaborate with business stakeholders, data stewards, infrastructure teams, security teams, and application owners to deliver secure and scalable data solutions.
- Implement and maintain controls for data privacy, regulatory compliance, audit readiness, and enterprise security requirements.
- Define operational standards for monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, performance optimization, deployment validation, and production support.
- Provide technical leadership through architecture guidance, code reviews, mentoring, and knowledge transfer across data engineering and analytics teams.
- Create and maintain architecture documentation, technical standards, governance procedures, implementation roadmaps, and executive-level recommendations.
- Support evaluation of cloud data warehousing and lakehouse technologies, including interoperability, scalability, governance, and cost optimization considerations.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
- 7+ years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, business intelligence engineering, or enterprise data platform development.
- Strong experience with Microsoft Fabric.
- Strong experience with Azure Synapse Analytics.
- Strong experience with Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS Gen2).
- Strong experience with OneLake.
- Strong experience with Power BI.
- Strong experience with Power Automate.
- Strong experience with Microsoft Purview.
- Strong experience with Azure-based data integration and analytics services.
- Deep understanding of data lake architecture, lakehouse methodologies, data warehousing, dimensional modeling, semantic modeling, metadata management, and enterprise governance frameworks.
- Experience leading architecture assessments, defining future-state solutions, creating technology roadmaps, and presenting recommendations to technical and executive audiences.
- Advanced SQL expertise and hands-on experience with ETL/ELT development, orchestration, data modeling, performance tuning, data validation, and issue resolution.
- Strong understanding of governance and security controls, including role-based access, data classification, lineage, cataloging, audit logging, and change management.
- Proven ability to mentor engineers, lead design reviews, establish engineering standards, and promote best practices across teams.
- Excellent communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical concepts, architecture decisions, risks, and implementation strategies to diverse stakeholders.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including Git-based source control.
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including automated deployments.
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including environment promotion strategies.
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including rollback planning.
- Experience with DevOps practices for enterprise data platforms, including separation-of-duties controls.
- Familiarity with Snowflake architecture and administration, including performance optimization, workload management, governance, security, and cost management.
- Experience evaluating and comparing cloud data platforms for scalability, governance, interoperability, performance, and long-term architecture strategy.
- Knowledge of data privacy regulations, security frameworks, compliance requirements, and audit-ready controls for sensitive enterprise data.
Technologies
- Microsoft Fabric
- Azure Synapse Analytics
- Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS Gen2)
- OneLake
- Power BI
- Power Automate
- Microsoft Purview
- Snowflake
- ETL/ELT
- Azure
Preferred Certifications
- Microsoft Certified: Fabric Data Engineer Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
- Microsoft Certified: Power BI Data Analyst Associate
- Microsoft certifications related to Microsoft Purview, Information Protection, Data Governance, Security, Privacy, or Compliance
- Microsoft Azure Fundamentals, Data Fundamentals, or Security Fundamentals
- Snowflake SnowPro Core, SnowPro Advanced Data Engineer, SnowPro Advanced Architect, or similar cloud data platform certifications
Contract Details
- Location: Los Angeles, CA (onsite)
- Compensation: USD 70 - 75 per hourly
- Job Type: contract