Principal Solutions Architect: Cross-Cloud Data Platform

Appnovation; Dallas (TX); On-site; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Appnovation is seeking a Principal Solutions Architect to define architecture for a governed, zero-copy cross-cloud data platform, guiding engineering across Databricks, Snowflake, and related sources. You will translate product vision into concrete design specifications and drive standards for data access and governance.

The role requires senior hands-on leadership, deep data governance expertise, and the ability to align enterprise practices with agile delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field with 10+ years technology experience including solution/enterprise/data architecture.
• Senior solutions or enterprise architect with cross-cloud/multi-cloud data architectures experience.
• Proven application of zero-copy, data-mesh, and data-product principles with governance.
• Deep expertise in data governance, access control, data sensitivity, policy classification, and geolocation-based access requirements.
• Experience defining data-contract standards (e.g., Linux Foundation Open Data Contract Standard) and governance metadata embedding.
• Strong background in identity and access management for users and machine identities (OAuth/OIDC, service accounts).
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills, with ability to explain complex trade-offs to diverse audiences.
• Prior consulting or client-facing delivery experience across multiple concurrent initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end solution architecture for a governed, zero-copy data platform across Databricks, Snowflake, and cloud data sources.
• Produce architecture artifacts and standards: decision records, reference architectures, solution diagrams.
• Define and prioritize catalog and metadata integration patterns across cloud and lakehouse environments.
• Design agent- and MCP-based access patterns exposing governed data products to enterprise AI tools.
• Set future-state direction for data products, cross-source data composition, and agentic consumption.
• Align architecture with enterprise engineering practices while guiding data-access and governance flows.

Skills

Solution Architecture

Cross-Cloud Data

Governance

Data Platform

Python

OAuth/OIDC

Stakeholder Management

Communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

Collibra

Unity Catalog

Terraform

Python

Job description

Appnovation is seeking a Principal Solutions Architect to define architecture for a governed, zero-copy cross-cloud data platform, guiding engineering across Databricks, Snowflake, and related sources. You will translate product vision into concrete design specifications and drive standards for data access and governance.

The role requires senior hands-on leadership, deep data governance expertise, and the ability to align enterprise practices with agile delivery.