Senior Data Architect

Delta Dental of California; Oakland (CA); On-site; USD 93,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive pay

401(k) matching

Medical benefits

Dental & vision benefits

Paid holidays & PTO

Career development

Job summary

Delta Dental of California seeks a Senior Data Architect to design scalable, cloud-native data solutions. You will translate business needs into secure, high-performing architectures and partner with IT leadership to enable capabilities across the data platform.

The role emphasizes governance, multi-cloud patterns, data sharing, and collaboration with Enterprise Architecture, Data Engineering, and business teams to drive innovation and scalable analytics.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Experience designing enterprise data architectures and data platforms.
• Strong knowledge of modern cloud data technologies and patterns.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and architecture of end-to-end data solutions across platforms.
• Define target-state data architectures, data flows, and storage strategies.
• Govern data ingestion, transformation, sharing, and interoperability across domains.
• Architect scalable data pipelines with a focus on performance, cost, and reliability.
• Enable AI/ML through data architectures supporting feature engineering and deployment.
• Ensure data governance, security, privacy, and regulatory compliance by design.

Skills

Cloud data architecture

Data governance

Stakeholder management

ETL/ELT patterns

Data platform design

AI/ML enablement

Security & compliance

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related

Tools

Snowflake

Matillion

Microsoft Fabric

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

The Senior Data Architect will design and implement scalable data solutions using the latest and advanced technology and toolsets. This role offers the right candidate the rare opportunity to leverage their extensive background to design and architect scalable, secure, and modern cloud-native data solutions. The role will also be responsible for working closely with business partners and IT leadership to understand the organization's business requirements and work with the broader IT team to enable/build new capabilities in our data platform that will support the current needs and scale to accommodate future growth.

• Lead the design and architecture of end-to-end data solutions, translating business strategy and requirements into scalable, secure, high-performing architectures.
• Define target-state data architectures and blueprints, including data flows, integration patterns, storage strategies, data processing, and consumption layers.
• Establish and govern standard architecture patterns for data ingestion, transformation (ETL/ELT), integration, interoperability, and data sharing across platforms and domains.
• Architect scalable and resilient data pipelines and workflows, optimizing for performance, cost, reliability, and operational efficiency.
• Design cloud-native data architectures that leverage modern data platforms for elasticity, resilience, modularity, and scalability.
• Enable AI/ML capabilities through data architectures that support experimentation, feature engineering, model development, deployment, and production consumption.
• Incorporate data governance, security, privacy, and compliance by design, including access controls, data classification, masking, lineage, and regulatory requirements.
• Design for interoperability and seamless data exchange across applications, data domains, platforms, and external systems.
• Lead the evaluation and selection of data technologies and platforms in partnership with IT, Enterprise Architecture, and business stakeholders, ensuring alignment with enterprise capabilities and strategy.
• Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure, Application Development, Data Engineering, and business teams to define technology roadmaps, capabilities, and solution strategies.
• Provide architectural oversight and governance for data solutions and cloud-native data platforms, ensuring adherence to enterprise standards and addressing risks, gaps, dependencies, and architectural trade-offs.
• Drive innovation through feasibility assessments, POCs, and pilots, evaluating emerging technologies and validating new architectural approaches.
• Provide architectural oversight for vendor and third-party data solutions, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture, security, integration, and data standards.
• Participate in architecture governance forums, contributing to design reviews, architecture decisions, approvals, and continuous improvement of enterprise data architecture.
• Mentor and guide data architects and engineers, promoting architecture best practices, design excellence, and continued capability development.

• 4+ years of experience in modern cloud data architecture or related fields, with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline.
• Deep understanding of modern data and analytics platforms and technologies, including Snowflake, Matillion, Microsoft Fabric, Power BI, Tableau, and other industry-leading solutions.
• Proven experience designing and delivering enterprise data solutions, including data warehousing, data lakes, lakehouse architectures, data management, integration, and analytics platforms.
• Extensive experience architecting end-to-end, scalable data platforms using modern cloud technologies, preferably Microsoft Azure, with experience in cloud-native, hybrid, or multi-cloud architectures.
• Strong ability to translate business requirements into scalable data architectures and solutions, with excellent communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of data architecture patterns and technology capabilities across ingestion, storage, processing, analytics, APIs, and microservices, with the ability to evaluate and select appropriate technologies.
• Experience collaborating with vendors and third-party partners to deliver solutions aligned with enterprise architecture, security, and data standards.
• Strong foundation in data governance, data quality, security, privacy, and regulatory compliance within enterprise data environments.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence decisions, facilitate collaboration, and drive alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Experience architecting data platforms that enable advanced analytics, AI/ML, MCP, and Generative AI use cases, while maintaining appropriate governance, security, scalability, and performance.

Base Pay Information

The national base pay range at the end is a good-faith estimate of what Delta Dental may pay for new hires. Actual pay may vary based on Delta Dental's assessment of the candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), related experience, education, certifications and ability to meet required minimum job qualifications. Other factors impacting pay include prevailing wages in the work location and internal equity.

Pay Grade 22. $92,500 - $200,400

Behind the smile! We are dedicated to safeguarding the health and financial stability of our employees and their loved ones. This commitment extends beyond the workplace to foster personal growth and holistic wellbeing. Our life-changing rewards package includes:

• Competitive base and incentive pay
• 401(k) with robust matching and non-matching contributions
• Rich medical & pharmacy benefits
• 100% employer-paid dental and vision benefits
• Holistic wellbeing program with deep financial incentives
• Generous paid time off plus 12 paid holidays and your birthday off
• Culture of growth and learning: career development; tuition reimbursement; recognition program
• Family support: adoption assistance, fertility treatment, child, elder & pet care assistance
• Social responsibility and volunteer opportunities
• Employee discount program

Fair Chance Ordinances and Criminal Background Considerations

This position requires that the applicant undergo a background check. Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with any applicable federal, state or local laws, including, but not limited to, the California Fair Chance Act, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and/or New York Corrections Law Article 23-A.

Important Work Authorization Information

Please note, Delta Dental will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.