Lead Data Architect: ETL, SQL & DataOps

University of Michigan; Ann Arbor (MI); On-site; USD 140,000 - 155,000; Full time

Job summary

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) seeks a hands-on Principal Data Architect to lead data pipelines, a data store, reporting, and data delivery automation for SRO. Lead a team of data engineers, DBAs, and report developers, setting standards for ingestion, transformation, validation, and delivery.

You will own production ETL/ELT pipelines, the ODS evolution, and DataOps practices while collaborating with stakeholders and ensuring data security and reliability in a

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data engineering or data warehouse environments.
• 5+ years supervising data engineers or related staff.
• Expert SQL Server skills including performance tuning and security.
• Strong Python for data ingestion and pipeline code.
• Experience with orchestration and relational data modeling.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of data engineers, DBAs, and report developers.
• Hands-on design reviews, PR reviews, and production issue resolution.
• Own ETL/ELT pipelines from 12+ sources with latency and quality targets.
• Oversee ODS evolution, data warehousing strategy, and migrations.
• Establish DataOps standards: source control, CI/CD, testing, monitoring.
• Develop and evolve internal data integration framework and metadata services.
• Ensure security and reliability of data systems with HA, backups, and upgrades.
• Drive strategy with PMs, methodologists, and operations stakeholders; support Power BI/SSRS.

Skills

Hands-on data architecture

SQL Server expert

Python for data engineering

ETL/ELT pipelines

Data modeling

DataOps practices

Git / CI/CD

APIs (REST/GraphQL)

Stakeholder communication

AI-assisted tools (e.g., Claude, Copi)

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Science, Engineering, or related field

Equivalent combination of education and professional experience

Tools

SQL Server tools (T-SQL, stored procedures)

SSIS, Airflow, Dagster, dbt

Power BI Report Server and SSRS

Git, CI/CD tooling

API ingestion (REST/GraphQL)

Azure DevOps

Job description

The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) seeks a hands-on Principal Data Architect to lead data pipelines, a data store, reporting, and data delivery automation for SRO. Lead a team of data engineers, DBAs, and report developers, setting standards for ingestion, transformation, validation, and delivery.

You will own production ETL/ELT pipelines, the ODS evolution, and DataOps practices while collaborating with stakeholders and ensuring data security and reliability in a