Principal Data Architect

MITRE; Tampa (FL); On-site; USD 171,000 - 256,000; Full time

Job summary

MITRE is seeking a Data Architect to lead enterprise data management and architecture efforts, aligning data assets with national security and public-interest missions.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop scalable data platforms, implement governance, and enable trusted AI for senior decision-makers. This onsite role requires TS/SCI eligibility and deep experience in data engineering and management.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field with 10+ years of experience.
• Active Top Secret/SCI eligibility and proven data architecture expertise.
• Experience integrating government and commercial tech to solve mission problems.

Responsibilities

• Develop enterprise data architectures, roadmaps, and implementable plans.
• Design data schemas, metadata schemas, workflows, and integration patterns.
• Align modern data capabilities to enterprise mission needs.
• Develop data governance models, policies, standards, and operating models.
• Translate mission needs into architecture recommendations and acquisition plans.
• Oversee data lineage, provenance, and auditability across pipelines.

Skills

Data architecture

Data management

Data engineering

Software engineering

Systems thinking

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field

Master’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field

PhD in computer science, data science, information systems, or related field

Tools

Relational databases

NoSQL databases

Data Lakehouse

Cloud platforms

Data cataloging tools

Job description

At MITRE, your passion fuels work that impacts our nation and improves lives. This is where your skills strengthen national security, cybersecurity, health, transportation, and citizen services. We’re a nonprofit engineering, applied research, and advanced technology organization working in the public interest. With objectivity and integrity at our core, we lead federally funded research and development centers for U.S. government agencies – collaborating with industry and academia to deliver integrated, high-impact solutions that advance our nation’s health, security, and prosperity. Our people tackle the toughest technical challenges, supported by competitive benefits, meaningful career development, and a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence. Choose MITRE for a career with purpose — and help shape the future. MITRE’s Systems Engineering Analytics department is looking for qualified applicants to bring their advanced data architecture and data engineering skills to bear on solving problems of critical national importance. MITRE’s diverse work program provides opportunities to apply your expertise and creative thinking in challenging domains such as national security, intelligence, transportation, and healthcare. Employees may also participate in MITRE’s internal research and development program, which provides funding for innovative applied research that addresses our sponsors’ hardest problems.

Roles & Responsibilities:

The successful candidate for this position is a Data Architect who combines strong foundations in data management, data engineering, and software engineering with hands‑on experience designing and implementing data systems to solve mission problems. Our organization values innovation and believes that keeping up with the latest research and technologies is essential.

The Data Architect will help our government sponsor establish and evaluate technical and programmatic blueprints and strategies to support the adoption of enterprise‑wide data management across the national security community. The Data Architect will play a critical role in developing policy and strategy, enterprise architecture, and acquisition plans for our government sponsors and provide senior leader decision support.

The successful candidate will serve as a trusted technical advisor and may act as a primary point of contact for senior government sponsors. The candidate will be expected to develop clear, concise, and actionable deliverables; communicate complex technical concepts to senior decision makers; and align state‑of‑the‑art data management capabilities to enterprise‑wide mission needs.

• Development of enterprise data architectures, data management roadmaps, data strategies, and implementable technical plans.
• Design and evaluation of data schemas, metadata schemas, data workflows, and data integration patterns.
• Alignment of modern data management capabilities to enterprise‑wide mission needs.
• Development or assessment of data governance models, stewardship approaches, policies, standards, and operating models.
• Evaluation of technical and programmatic blueprints supporting enterprise‑wide data management adoption.
• Translation of mission needs into data architecture recommendations, implementation plans, and acquisition‑informed strategies.
• Metadata management, data cataloging, data discovery, and enterprise data inventory approaches.
• Data lineage, provenance, traceability, and auditability across data pipelines and analytic workflows.
• Data quality frameworks, controls, and metrics that improve confidence in enterprise data assets.
• Data and model provenance practices that support trustworthy AI, responsible AI adoption, and senior‑leader confidence in analytic outputs.
• Cloud‑based data platforms, storage architectures, and data‑intensive system design.
• Capacity planning, scalability assessment, and performance considerations for enterprise‑scale data systems.
• Understanding of the architectural role, tradeoffs, and fit‑for‑purpose use of technologies such as: Relational and NoSQL databases; Distributed data processing and analysis tools; Workflow orchestration tools; Object storage (both on‑prem and cloud‑based solutions); Data Lakehouse platforms, open table formats, and lakehouse patterns; Data cataloging tools.
• Ability to work with engineering teams to translate architecture, policy, and strategy into implementable technical solutions.

Expectations for this position are as follows:

• Leads functional teams or projects with notable risk, complexity, and resource requirements.
• Recognized as a technical expert within Data Engineering and/or Data Management.
• Identifies and resolves complex problems in ways that have lasting impact for an organization.
• Applies expert level of experience and knowledge of theories, practices, and procedures within the Data Management and Data Engineering disciplines and transfers that knowledge to others.
• Communicates complex ideas, anticipates potential objections, and persuades others to adopt a new point of view; Shapes, influences, and persuades others to achieve enterprise‑level mission objectives.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field with 10 years of relevant experience.
• Ability to rapidly understand unfamiliar mission problems and translate them into technical approaches
• Strong systems thinking and analytical problem‑solving skills
• Experience integrating commercial, government, and open‑source technologies to solve operational problems
• Ability to analyze complex technical information and communicate findings and recommendations clearly to technical and non‑technical audiences
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders
• Must have an active Top Secret U.S Government issued Security Clearance and must be eligible to obtain and maintain a Top Secret/SCI U.S Government issued Security Clearance. Per the U.S. Government’s eligibility requirements, you must be a U.S Citizen to be considered for a security clearance.
• This position requires a minimum of 3 days a week on‑site.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field with 8 years of relevant experience; PhD in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, or related field with 5 years of relevant experience.
• Active DoD Top Secret / SCI clearance
• Prior experience as a Solutions Architect, Data Architect or Data Engineer in support of U.S. government organizations.
• Strong knowledge of military intelligence, operations or logistics and related data processes and systems in use or relied upon by Combatant Commands
• Recent experience with multi‑domain data (PAI, CAI, traditional Intel, and operational data), and its processing (data pipelines, structuring, models), storage governance, and visualization
• Ability to operate independently in a sponsor‑facing environment with minimal supervision

This requisition requires the candidate to have a minimum of the following clearance(s):

Top Secret

This requisition requires the hired candidate to have or obtain, within one year from the date of hire, the following clearance(s):

Top Secret/SCI

Salary compensation range and midpoint:

$171,000 - $213,500 - $256,000 Annual

Work Location Type:

Onsite

Commitment to Non-Discrimination

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local or international law.

MITRE intends to maintain a website that is fully accessible to all individuals. If you are unable to search or apply for jobs and would like to request a reasonable accommodation for any part of MITRE’s employment process, please email [e-mail] for general support and [e-mail] for intern positions. This service is for individuals requiring reasonable accommodation requests. Please note that vendor solicitations will not receive a reply.

Benefits information may be found here.

Copyright © 1997-2026, The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved. MITRE is a registered trademark of The MITRE Corporation. Material on this site may be copied and distributed with permission only.