Senior Databricks Architect - Data Modernization on AWS

Cognizant; Jackson (MS); Remote; USD 170,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking an experienced Databricks Architect to lead enterprise data modernization. Expertise in Databricks Lakehouse, Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and AWS is essential. The role focuses on migration from legacy systems to a scalable Databricks ecosystem within a remote work model.

The ideal candidate will guide data governance, security, and metadata management while mentoring engineers and aligning with business stakeholders across analytics and engineering teams.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of Data Engineering/Data Architecture experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on Databricks Architecture experience.
• Strong expertise in Databricks Lakehouse, Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Databricks SQL, Python, SQL, AWS (S3, IAM).
• Experience with large-scale cloud migration and modernization initiatives.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement enterprise-scale Databricks Lakehouse architecture.
• Lead data modernization and migration programs from legacy platforms to Databricks.
• Architect scalable ELT/ETL pipelines using Databricks, Spark, Delta Lake, and Python.
• Define data governance, security, lineage, and metadata management strategies using Unity Catalog.
• Design batch and real-time data processing solutions.
• Provide architecture guidance for cloud-native solutions on AWS.
• Collaborate with business, analytics, and engineering teams to define data strategies.
• Establish best practices for data quality, monitoring, performance tuning, and cost optimization.
• Create architecture standards, reference architectures, and technical documentation.
• Mentor data engineers and technical leads throughout the development lifecycle.
• Evaluate and recommend emerging technologies and AI/ML capabilities within the Databricks ecosystem.

Skills

Databricks Lakehouse

Apache Spark/PySpark

Delta Lake

Unity Catalog

Databricks SQL

Python

SQL

AWS Cloud

Data Modeling

Data Governance

Tools

Terraform

Snowflake

Airflow

Job description

Cognizant is seeking an experienced Databricks Architect to lead enterprise data modernization. Expertise in Databricks Lakehouse, Spark, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and AWS is essential. The role focuses on migration from legacy systems to a scalable Databricks ecosystem within a remote work model.

The ideal candidate will guide data governance, security, and metadata management while mentoring engineers and aligning with business stakeholders across analytics and engineering teams.