Staff Data Architect: AI & ML Data Platform Lead

FanDuel; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

FanDuel Total Rewards

401k with up to 5% match

Paid time off and holidays

Commuter benefits

Job summary

FanDuel is seeking a Staff Data Architect focused on AI & ML to shape how data is ingested, modeled, and turned into AI-native capabilities. You will own the architectural direction across the data platform and AI/ML workloads, spanning multiple domains and aligning strategy with execution.

You will lead the data pipeline factory, establish standards, partner with data, ML, and engineering teams, evaluate new technologies, and drive scalable, observable ML-ready data systems for production.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in data architecture, data platforms, and Big Data with ML engineering.
• Technical and analytical experience across Data Warehousing, Streaming, Big Data, and AI/ML systems.
• Strong hands-on proficiency with Databricks as a data lakehouse, plus dbt and Spark.
• Experience architecting ML/AI workloads including vector/semantic/unified search as durable, production-grade systems.
• Practical experience using AI tooling and agents to accelerate development with strong engineering fundamentals.
• Systems-first mindset toward AI, treating LLMs and agents as governed components.
• Experience leading large-scale data/AI/ML projects in batch and streaming environments.
• Ability to influence multiple teams and align stakeholders across boundaries.
• Strong data security and compliance awareness.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and facilitation skills.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field.

Responsibilities

• Own the architectural vision for applying AI across the data platform—accelerating ingestion, modeling, and delivery, and unlocking new capabilities.
• Architect an AI-assisted data pipeline factory with patterns, guardrails, and standards for production data pipelines.
• Design AI-native tools and services built on reusable architectural foundations rather than one-off solutions.
• Define architecture and scope for advanced ML and deep learning workloads, including vector and unified search.
• Establish reference architectures, contracts, and standards to keep ML/AI data flows interoperable and ML-ready by default.
• Prevent fragmentation by driving convergence on shared patterns across AI/ML efforts.
• Partner with data, ML, and engineering teams to translate AI ideas into concrete, buildable architecture.
• Evaluate emerging AI/ML/data technologies and recommend adoption to create durable advantage.
• Oversee performance, cost, and reliability of AI/ML data systems; improve efficiency as they scale.
• Communicate value and direction to stakeholders across the data organization and beyond.

Skills

Data architecture

Big Data

ML engineering

Databricks

dbt

Spark

AI/ML workloads

Cross-team influence

Education

Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field

Tools

Python

SQL

Airflow

Job description

FanDuel is seeking a Staff Data Architect focused on AI & ML to shape how data is ingested, modeled, and turned into AI-native capabilities. You will own the architectural direction across the data platform and AI/ML workloads, spanning multiple domains and aligning strategy with execution.

You will lead the data pipeline factory, establish standards, partner with data, ML, and engineering teams, evaluate new technologies, and drive scalable, observable ML-ready data systems for production.