Senior Data Architect

Our Client in the Financial Services Sector is seeking an experienced and visionary Intermediate to Senior Data Architect to lead the design, development, and implementation of their data infrastructure on the AWS cloud.

Rate: Market related

Location: Cape Town

Terms: 12 Month Contract

This role will be critical in defining their data strategy, ensuring data quality and governance, and enabling advanced analytics and reporting capabilities across their financial services and/or healthcare operations. The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of data modeling principles, cloud-based data warehousing solutions, and data integration technologies, with a strong focus on scalability, security, and performance.

Responsibilities:

• Define and implement the overall data architecture strategy and roadmap for the organization, aligned with business goals and industry best practices.
• Design and build scalable and secure data warehousing and data lake solutions on AWS (e.g., Redshift, S3, Lake Formation).
• Develop and maintain data models (conceptual, logical, and physical) that support various analytical and operational needs within the financial services and/or healthcare context.
• Establish and enforce data governance policies, standards, and procedures to ensure data quality, integrity, and security.
• Design and implement ETL/ELT processes and data integration pipelines using AWS services (e.g., Glue, Step Functions, Data Pipeline) and other relevant tools.
• Evaluate and recommend new data technologies and tools to enhance our data infrastructure and capabilities on AWS.
• Collaborate with Data Engineers, Data Analysts, and other stakeholders to understand their data requirements and provide architectural guidance.
• Ensure the performance, reliability, and scalability of our data platforms on AWS.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for data architecture, data models, and data flows.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to other members of the data team.
• Stay abreast of the latest advancements in data architecture, cloud computing, and relevant industry regulations (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, POPIA).

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related technical field.
• 8 years of experience in data architecture, with a significant focus on cloud-based solutions, particularly AWS.
• Deep understanding of data modeling principles (e.g., relational, dimensional, NoSQL).
• Extensive experience designing and implementing data warehousing solutions (e.g., Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery).
• Hands-on experience with AWS data services such as S3, Redshift, Athena, Glue, Lake Formation, IAM, and Security Hub.
• Strong knowledge of ETL/ELT concepts and tools.
• Experience with data governance frameworks and tools.
• Understanding of data security best practices in a cloud environment.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and design skills.
• Strong communication, collaboration, and presentation skills.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like Terraform or CloudFormation is a plus.
• Familiarity with healthcare data standards (e.g., HL7, FHIR) or financial services regulations (e.g., GDPR, CCPA) is a significant advantage (tailor based on the primary sector).