Senior Data Architect (North America)

Lateral Group; Fort Lauderdale (FL); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Lateral, Inc is seeking a senior Data Architect to set the direction of our data platform. You will shape architecture, model finance data, and lead integration across 40+ sources to support reliable reporting and scalable analytics.

You will collaborate with finance, investments, and operations stakeholders, drive governance, and mentor engineers while focusing on performance, cost, and data quality. This role is on-site in Fort Lauderdale, with a focus on AI-enabled data solutions.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in data engineering, data architecture, or database engineering, with real ownership of production data platforms.
• Hands-on experience with a cloud data warehouse (Snowflake preferred; Databricks or similar) including performance tuning and cost management.
• Strong data modeling skills: grain, dimensional modeling, layered architectures, and handling corrections and late‑arriving data.
• Advanced SQL and designing efficient schemas for high-volume environments.
• Experience designing ETL/ELT pipelines and integrations across many sources with a transformation framework (dbt) and an orchestrator (Airflow, Dagster).
• Finance literacy: modeling general ledger data, charts of accounts, and account hierarchies into financial/management reporting.
• Ability to diagnose and improve platforms you didn’t build, and to decide what to fix first.
• A quality mindset: testing, data quality, lineage, and clear design documentation (diagrams, decisions, trade‑offs).
• Strong English communication and comfort with remote, asynchronous work across time zones.
• A practical working relationship with AI tools in design, build, and documentation.

Responsibilities

• Assess and shape the platform architecture: review Snowflake, define target architecture with layered raw/staging/marts and data corrections handling.
• Design the financial data model: GL activity, COA, and hierarchies for financial and management reporting.
• Design for the business, translating stakeholder needs into scalable data designs.
• Own integration design across 40+ sources: ingestion, transformation, orchestration with lineage and testing.
• Optimize for performance and cost: warehouse sizing, query performance, cost management across teams.
• Set standards and lead design reviews, document designs, and mentor data engineers.
• Prepare the platform for governance, data cataloging, and AI-enabled use cases.

Skills

Years of experience

Snowflake

Data modeling

Advanced SQL

ETL/ELT pipelines

Finance literacy

Data quality & lineage

English communication

AI tooling integration

Leadership & mentoring

Tools

Snowflake

Databricks

dbt

Airflow

Dagster

Job description

What you’ll do

You’ll join a small, senior Data & Analytics team at a real estate investment firm that has built a sophisticated data platform on Snowflake, pulling together 40+ data sources. The platform has grown fast, and the team now needs an architect who can set the direction: how the data should be layered, modeled, governed, and served so that reporting is reliable and the business can trust it. The immediate priority is financial reporting: mapping account-level activity through account hierarchies into financial statements.

You will:

• Assess and shape the platform architecture. Review the existing Snowflake environment, work out what is actually working and what isn’t, and define the target architecture: layering from raw through staging to marts, naming and grain standards, and how corrections and late-arriving data are handled.

• Design the financial data model. Model general ledger activity, charts of accounts, and account hierarchies so they roll up cleanly into financial statements and management reporting, and stay consistent as new sources are added.

• Design for the business, not just the ticket. Work with finance, investment, and operations stakeholders to understand how Transactions, Reporting and source of truth, and Day-to-day decision making depend on the data, and translate that into scalable designs.

• Own integration design across 40+ sources. Define patterns for ingestion, transformation, and orchestration across real estate systems, finance systems, and external feeds, with attention to lineage, data quality, and testing.

• Optimize for performance and cost. Guide warehouse sizing, query performance, and cost management in Snowflake, and make trade-offs visible to engineers and non‑engineers alike.

• Set the standard and lead by example. Run design reviews, produce clear design documentation, mentor data engineers, and push back when something isn’t right.

• Prepare the platform for what’s next. Shape how the team approaches governance, data cataloging, and AI‑enabled use cases so outputs are consistent and reusable.

What we’re looking for

We’re looking for someone highly technical who cares deeply about craft and can explain design choices to people who aren’t engineers. You must bring:

• 7+ years in data engineering, data architecture, or database engineering, with real ownership of production data platforms

• Deep, hands‑on experience with a cloud data warehouse (Snowflake preferred; Databricks or similar considered), including performance tuning and cost management

• Strong data modeling skills: stating and enforcing grain, dimensional modeling, layered architectures, and handling corrections and late‑arriving data

• Advanced SQL and experience designing efficient schemas for high‑volume environments

• Experience designing ETL/ELT pipelines and integrations across many sources, with a transformation framework (dbt or similar) and an orchestrator (Airflow, Dagster, or similar)

• Finance literacy: experience modeling general ledger data, charts of accounts, and account hierarchies into financial or management reporting

• Proven ability to diagnose and improve platforms you didn’t build, and to decide what to fix first

• A quality mindset: testing, data quality, lineage, and clear design documentation (diagrams, decisions, trade‑offs)

• Strong English communication and comfort with remote, asynchronous work across time zones

• A practical working relationship with AI tools in how you design, build, and document

Bonus points for

• Experience in asset management, investment firms, or commercial real estate

• Familiarity with systems such as Yardi, MRI, RealPage, Argus, VTS, or CoStar

• Experience building analytics‑ready models for BI tools (Power BI in particular)

• Exposure to Snowflake AI capabilities (Cortex, agent‑building) or data catalog and governance initiatives

• Leadership of data architecture across multiple projects or business domains

• A track record of mentoring other engineers

Why You’ll Love Working Here

Real impact. You'll work on meaningful products that make a measurable difference.

An outstanding team. Talented, kind, hard working people who care about their craft and about each other. No egos. No politics.

Growth. You'll be supported in growing your craft, exploring new paths, and stepping into greater responsibility, at your own pace.

A culture of excellence. We care about doing the right thing for our clients, our team, and ourselves. No burnout. No crunch. Just high quality work, delivered sustainably.

Variety and stability. We're profitable, independent, and over two decades strong. Yet every project brings a fresh challenge. You'll never be bored here.

This Role Might Not Be for You

We want to respect your time by being clear about what this role isn't. You should skip this opportunity if:

• You prefer well defined structure. If you gravitate toward a clear hierarchy and well defined roles and swim lanes, you may find our self‑managed style challenging.

• Distributed work isn't your thing. If you find async communication, design documentation, and being proactive without a manager nearby difficult, our setup won't suit you.

• Inheriting an existing environment doesn't appeal. This role starts by stabilizing and improving a platform someone else built, with a lot of moving parts. If you only want greenfield projects, you'll find it frustrating.

• Feedback doesn't excite you. We're obsessed with quality and believe in continuous improvement. That means feedback that's sometimes nitpicky. If refining work until it's excellent feels over the top, this won't be a fit.

• Change makes you uncomfortable. Priorities shift and processes evolve. If ambiguity is uncomfortable, this may feel bumpy.

However, if this sounds like fuel, we'd love to talk.