Senior Data Architect (8-month FTC)

Harnham
Manchester, United Kingdom
3 days ago

Role details

Contract type
Temporary contract
Employment type
Full-time (> 32 hours)
Working hours
Regular working hours
Languages
English
Experience level
Senior
Compensation
£ 101K

Job location

Remote
Manchester, United Kingdom

Tech stack

Query Performance
Artificial Intelligence
Big Data
Continuous Integration
Data Architecture
Information Engineering
Data Infrastructure
Data Transformation
Data Warehousing
Distributed Systems
Python
SQL Databases
Spark
GIT
Data Layers
Data Lake
Star Schema
Data Management
Code Restructuring
Looker Analytics
Software Version Control
Data Pipelines
Legacy Systems
Databricks

Job description

This is a hands-on architecture role sitting at the intersection of data engineering and BI - where your work will directly shape how the business uses data to make decisions. The company

A global technology business operating in the data and insights / research space, serving major clients worldwide and processing hundreds of millions of data points annually.

They are investing heavily in modernising their data platform and analytics capabilities, with a strong focus on performance, scalability, and self-serve analytics. The role

You'll take full ownership of the Databricks Lakehouse and BI architecture, leading the migration away from legacy systems while building a clean, governed and scalable platform.

This is not just a design role - you'll be deep in the detail, refactoring SQL, building pipelines, and optimising performance. What you'll be doing

  • Design and implement a governed Databricks Lakehouse architecture (Unity Catalog, schemas, volumes)
  • Lead migration of complex legacy SQL logic into modular, scalable pipelines
  • Build and optimise data transformation frameworks using Spark / Python / SQL pipelines
  • Act as the go-to expert for query performance optimisation (Spark execution plans, data skew, joins)
  • Design and implement dimensional data models (star / snowflake schemas)
  • Architect the semantic layer for BI (Omni or similar tools like Looker)
  • Build CI/CD pipelines to automate testing and deployment
  • Work with stakeholders across Product, Finance, and Commercial teams to deliver scalable solutions

Requirements

  • 8+ years in data engineering / data architecture
  • Deep experience with Databricks (Lakehouse, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog)
  • Expert SQL and distributed computing knowledge
  • Strong experience with data modelling (star / snowflake schemas)
  • Proven experience migrating legacy data platforms
  • Ability to optimise performance across large datasets
  • Experience with modern BI semantic layers (e.g. Looker, Omni, Superset)
  • Experience with CI/CD and version control (Git)

Nice to have

  • Experience with dbt or similar transformation frameworks
  • Exposure to AI/BI or natural language querying tools
  • Experience in multi-tenant or embedded analytics environments

Why this role

  • Own and shape a modern data platform at scale
  • High-impact project with visible business outcomes
  • Combination of architecture + hands-on engineering
  • Work on performance, scalability, and governance challenges
  • Flexible, remote-friendly working

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