"Senior Architect, Data Solutions"

Overview

The University Data Office at Yale University, led by our new Chief Data Officer (CDO), is on an exciting multi-year journey to transform how data is leveraged across the university as a strategic asset. The newly established University Data Office will play a critical role in promoting the use of data across the university in decision-making, safely utilizing advances in AI, and ensuring the security and privacy of the university’s data. Yale generates a wealth of data from its teaching and research activities, but the effectiveness of utilizing data to make informed decisions is limited today by a fragmented data environment and cross-domain analytics conducted mostly on an ad hoc basis. The University Data Office is developing a cohesive data strategy and architecture for institutional data that will enable integrated insights for the president, provost, deans and other key stakeholders at the university.

As an early hire in the new University Data Office reporting to the CDO, the Senior Architect, Data Solutions, will help lead this transformative initiative to shape the future of data-driven insights at one of the world’s preeminent academic institutions.

In this role, the successful candidate will partner with IT to design and implement data solutions serving university leaders. The Senior Architect will also build/strengthen a business case for a multi-year roadmap to mature/modernize our enterprise data architecture to support scalable data solutions, and partner with IT on future state implementation.

Key responsibilities include but are not limited to:

1. Act as the primary technical liaison between the University Data Office and IT, fostering collaboration to enhance data architecture and solution development.
2. Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend tools to optimize data operations and analytics.
3. Build and advocate for business cases supporting investments in data architecture and data governance tools.
4. In partnership with IT, develop, implement and maintain a multi-year roadmap for migrating the enterprise data warehouse to a modern, cloud-based lakehouse architecture.
5. In partnership with the Product Manager, Data Solutions and various IT teams, lead the design and implementation of scalable, secure, and high-performing data solutions aligned with business goals and best practices. The Product Manager will focus on gathering user requirements and developing a complete understanding of the data needed to impact decision-making. The Senior Architect will partner with IT teams to drive solutioning phases by translating business needs into technical strategies.
6. Oversee data integration efforts, reviewing and improving data pipelines to support solution development.
7. Ensure architectural compliance with security, privacy, performance, and cost requirements in collaboration with IT.
8. Design solution enabling self-service access to structured and unstructured data while upholding data governance standards.
9. Partner Data Governance Program Manager on data quality initiatives, collaborating with system owners to address technical root causes of data quality issues.
10. Create and present architectural documentation to stakeholders at all levels, securing alignment and buy-in.
11. Support implementation of data governance and lifecycle policies in partnership with IT.

Required skills and abilities

1. Proven experience designing, developing, and maintaining enterprise-scale data platforms, including large-scale, multi-year implementations. Strong background in enterprise data architecture and analytics in evolving data environments.
2. Experience designing and implementing data products/solutions at scale. Skilled at engaging with business users to assess requirements, designing solutions, and implementing them at scale with a high degree of technical expertise.
3. Fluency in data platform design and data engineering principles. Expertise with cloud-based data platforms such as Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, Snowflake, and/or Azure Synapse. Experience implementing both data warehouse and lakehouse architectures. Skilled at tuning for performance and cost optimization.
4. Familiarity with agile development and CI/CD. Familiarity with tools for data analysis, data science, and reporting (e.g., R, Python, Jupyter notebooks, Power BI, Tableau). Strong understanding of data privacy, security, and governance best practices.
5. Strategic thinker with excellent communication skills and the ability to engage stakeholders at all levels. Comfortable in both hands-on and consulting roles, and able to work effectively with cross-functional teams. Skilled at leading through influence and collaborating with internal and external partners.

Preferred Skills and Abilities

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or related field, 10+ years of data architecture/engineering and/or data solution development experience in a professional environment. Relevant certifications in data/enterprise architecture and cloud platforms.

Proven experience leading a multi-year cloud-based data modernization effort highly valued.

Principal Responsibilities

1. Examine and validate broader subsystems standards and assure that inter-system architectures are both efficient and consistent with existing institutional standards and practices. Identify Technical Gaps / and Technical Debt within your area of formal expertise.
2. Establishes new paradigms for their area expertise.
3. Develops, documents, and disseminates standard assemblies of technologies to flexibly and efficiently solve University needs.
4. Responsible for establishing design decisions and assuring that the implementations are socialized and understood by the effected parties.

Required Education and Experience

Bachelor's Degree and seven years of experience or equivalent education and experience.