Lead Data Architect: Cloud-Native Data Modernization

Socket.dev; Suitland (MD); On-site; USD 104,000 - 166,000; Full time

Job summary

Peraton seeks an experienced Lead Data Architect to drive enterprise data architecture strategy on a large federal modernization program, delivering data-centric, cloud-native ecosystems and DevSecOps across the organization.

You will lead data platforms, governance, AI/ML integration, and real-time processing, collaborating with architects, engineers, data scientists, vendors, and government stakeholders to ensure secure, scalable data solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher with extensive data architecture experience.
• 10+ years in data architecture or large-scale modernization initiatives.
• Experience with data lakes, data warehouses, and distributed platforms.
• Proven capability to design enterprise data models, schemas, and governance.
• Strong knowledge of cloud data services (AWS/Azure) and DevSecOps.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across enterprise data architecture efforts.
• Design scalable data ecosystems including lakes, warehouses, and processing platforms.
• Define enterprise data models, standards, and lifecycle management.
• Oversee data management, quality, lineage, and governance processes.
• Establish metadata catalogs, data dictionaries, and lineage frameworks.
• Design and manage large-scale ingestion, ETL/ELT pipelines, and analytics
• Support real-time streaming architectures and event-driven processing
• Oversee APIs, interfaces, and ICDs across systems
• Support AI/ML-enabled architectures including MLOps and governance
• Collaborate with vendors and government stakeholders for secure, scalable solutions
• Ensure compliance with NIST, FedRAMP, Zero Trust, ATO requirements

Skills

Data architecture leadership

Cloud-native architectures

ETL/ELT pipelines

Data governance

Data lakes / lakehouse

Real-time data processing

APIs & system integration

AI/ML integration

Security/compliance (NIST, FedRAMP)

FinOps / cloud cost optimization

Education

Bachelor's degree

Associates degree

High School diploma or equivalent

Tools

Spark

Kafka

Airflow

Databricks

Snowflake

Job description

Peraton seeks an experienced Lead Data Architect to drive enterprise data architecture strategy on a large federal modernization program, delivering data-centric, cloud-native ecosystems and DevSecOps across the organization.

You will lead data platforms, governance, AI/ML integration, and real-time processing, collaborating with architects, engineers, data scientists, vendors, and government stakeholders to ensure secure, scalable data solutions.