Job Summary
The Engagement Lead / Principal Architect will lead a strategic data transformation and target-state architecture engagement for a major banking client, combining engagement leadership, enterprise data architecture, governance, risk management, and executive stakeholder management. The role will establish the delivery framework, manage risks and dependencies, drive ownership decisions, and defend the target-state conceptual architecture before the client's architecture board. The architect will work closely with business and technology stakeholders, Data Mesh and Enterprise Architecture teams, domain representatives, and delivery leads to ensure successful execution and alignment of the data transformation strategy.
Key Responsibilities
• Secure read-only access to SQL Server system metadata and establish the approved analysis workspace and repository within the first two weeks.
• Establish the RACI, standards, templates, working cadence, delivery-leadership review process, and escalation path with client stakeholders.
• Map key stakeholders and secure a single named coordination point for each business domain.
• Own and maintain the risk, issue, and dependency log and escalate stakeholder availability risks and schedule impacts proactively.
• Chair the DACI forum for contested and multi-domain items and establish exactly one accountable owner with explicit contracted consumers.
• Quality-gate each phase exit against agreed key exit criteria before deliverables are submitted to the client.
• Own the target-state conceptual architecture narrative jointly with the Data Mesh / Enterprise Architect.
• Defend the target-state conceptual architecture and recommendations at the client architecture board.
• Author executive summaries and recommendations in presentation and document formats.
• Sequence the transformation roadmap based on materiality, regulatory exposure, and delivery risk.
• Define and frame the recommended follow-on phase, including funding priorities, sequencing, and the cost of deferring work on high-materiality core tables.
• Coordinate closely with Data Mesh, Enterprise Architecture, business, technology, domain, and delivery stakeholders throughout the engagement.
Required Qualifications
• 10+ years of experience in data architecture or data transformation consulting.
• 3+ years of experience as the accountable owner of engagements at director or principal level.
• Strong capital markets or Tier-1/Tier-2 banking domain experience, with the ability to discuss trade, position, collateral, sub-ledger, and regulatory reporting data.
• Demonstrated experience owning a target-state data architecture that was formally accepted by a bank architecture review board.
• Strong understanding of data mesh operating models, including domain ownership, data as a product, self-service platforms, and federated computational governance.
• Ability to evaluate the appropriate balance between centralized and decentralized ownership of shared data assets and recognize where data mesh approaches can fail through over-centralization or over-fragmentation.
• Strong experience with lakehouse and medallion architectures on Azure Databricks, with sufficient technical depth to challenge architecture patterns.
• Strong executive presence and stakeholder management skills, including experience working with bank stakeholders at Head-of and Managing Director levels.
• Experience running steering committees and communicating challenging or unfavorable findings to senior stakeholders.
• TOGAF certification or equivalent demonstrable experience using TOGAF to govern an architecture pattern catalogue.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience decomposing SQL Server or Oracle monolithic environments where stored-procedure logic obscured data ownership boundaries.
• Experience with regulatory programs and frameworks such as CCAR, FR Y-14, Dodd-Frank, or BCBS 239 lineage and Critical Data Element (CDE) evidence.
• Experience leading distributed delivery teams across US, Canada, and India time zones on fixed-window engagements.
