Senior Data Architect

As a Senior Data Architect on our Global Data & Advanced Analytics team, you will be the visionary and designer of our data ecosystem. You'll leverage your expertise in AWS cloud-native technologies and big data platforms to build scalable data solutions that empower advanced analytics and AI-driven products. This is a senior role for a hands-on leader who can both strategize at the enterprise level and dive into technical design. You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure our data architecture is robust, secure, and aligned with business needs, enabling Alight's mission to provide insightful, real-time solutions in health, wealth, and human capital.

Responsibilities:

Design and Strategy : Work with data architecture team to define data architecture blueprints for our products, including data flow diagrams, system integrations, and storage solutions. Continuously refine the architecture to meet evolving business requirements and to incorporate new AWS capabilities and industry best practices. Drive adoption of and oversee adherence to architecture and standards.

Cloud Data Platform Development : Lead the development of our cloud-based data platform on AWS. Implement data pipelines and warehouses using AWS services - e.g., AWS Glue for ETL, AWS Lambda for serverless processing, Amazon Redshift for data warehousing, and S3 for data storage. Ensure that data is efficiently extracted, transformed, and loaded to support AI, automation, and analytics & reporting needs.

Big Data & Legacy Integration : Oversee the ingestion of large-scale datasets from various sources (transactional systems, APIs, external files). Optimize processing of big data using Spark and integrate legacy Hadoop-based data into our AWS environment.

Data Modeling: Develop and maintain data models (conceptual, logical, physical) for our databases and data lakes. Design relational schemas and dimensional models that cater to both operational applications and analytical workloads. Ensure data is organized for easy access and high performance (for example, optimizing Redshift schema design and using partitioning or sort keys appropriately).

Advanced Analytics Enablement : Work closely with Data Science and Analytics teams to enable AI and advanced analytics. Provide well-structured data sets and create pipelines that feed machine learning models (e.g., customer personalization models, predictive analytics). Implement mechanisms to handle real-time streaming data (using tools like Kinesis or Kafka if needed) and ensure data quality and freshness for AI use cases.

Efficiency and Scalability : Design efficient, scalable processes for data handling. This includes optimizing ETL jobs (monitoring and tuning Glue/Spark jobs), implementing incremental data loading strategies instead of full loads where possible, and ensuring our data infrastructure can scale to growing data volumes. You will continually seek opportunities to automate manual data management tasks and improve pipeline reliability (CI/CD for data pipelines).

Data Governance & Security : Embed data governance into the architecture - implement data cataloging, lineage tracking, and governance policies. Ensure compliance with data privacy and security standards: implement access controls, encryption (at-rest and in-transit), and data retention policies aligned with Alight and client requirements. Work with the InfoSec team to perform regular audits of data access and to support features like data masking or tokenization for sensitive information.

Collaboration and Leadership : Collaborate with other technology leadership and architects, product managers, business analysts, and engineering leads to understand data needs and translate them into technical solutions. Provide technical leadership to data engineers - set development standards, guide them in choosing the right tools/approaches, and conduct design/code reviews. Lead architecture review sessions and be the go-to expert for any questions on data strategy and implementation.

Innovation and Thought Leadership: Stay abreast of emerging trends in data architecture, big data, and AI. Evaluate and recommend new technologies or approaches (for example, evaluate the use of data lakehouses, graph databases, or new AWS analytics services). Provide thought leadership on how Alight can leverage data for competitive advantage, and pilot proof-of-concepts for new ideas.

Experience : 10+ years (preferred 15+ years) of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or related fields, with a track record of designing and implementing large-scale data solutions. Demonstrated experience leading data-centric projects from concept to production.

Cloud & Big Data Expertise : Hands-on expertise with AWS data services - especially AWS Glue, Lambda, Redshift, and S3. Proficiency in designing data pipelines and warehousing solutions on AWS is a must. Strong experience with big data technologies including Hadoop and Spark; able to optimize heavy data processing jobs and troubleshoot performance issues in distributed data systems.

Data Modeling & Warehousing : Exceptional skills in data modeling and database design. Able to design dimensional or normalized schemas. Deep understanding of SQL and proficiency in writing and tuning complex queries. Experience building and maintaining a enterprise data warehouse or data lake, including partitioning strategies, indexing, and query optimization.

Programming & Scripting : Proficiency in programming for data engineering - Python (or Scala/Java) for ETL/ELT scripting, and solid SQL skills for data manipulation and analysis. Experience with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/CloudFormation) and CI/CD pipelines for deploying data infrastructure is a plus.

Analytics and AI Orientation : Knowledge of machine learning concepts and experience supporting data science teams. You should understand how to prepare data for modeling and have experience with one or more tools or frameworks for data analysis. Experience with real-time data streaming and processing (Kinesis, Kafka, or similar) is a plus, as is exposure to AI/ML services (like Amazon SageMaker or Bedrock).

Leadership & Soft Skills : Excellent communication skills with an ability to explain complex architectures in simple terms. Experience collaborating in cross-functional teams and leading technical initiatives. Proven ability to mentor junior engineers and to establish best practices in code quality, documentation, and data pipeline design. A problem-solving mindset and the flexibility to work in a fast-paced, evolving environment.

Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field required. (Master's degree in a relevant field is a plus.)

Certifications : (Preferred) AWS Certified Solutions Architect or AWS Certified Data Analytics certification. Any big data or database certifications (Cloudera Data Platform, Oracle/SQL Server certs, etc.) will be a plus and reinforce your expertise in the field.

We offer programs and plans for a healthy mind, body, wallet and life because it's important our benefits care for the whole person. Options include a variety of health coverage options, wellbeing and support programs, retirement, vacation and sick leave, maternity, paternity & adoption leave, continuing education and training as well as several voluntary benefit options.

By applying for a position with Alight, you understand that, should you be made an offer, it will be contingent on your undergoing and successfully completing a background check consistent with Alight's employment policies. Background checks may include some or all the following based on the nature of the position: SSN/SIN validation, education verification, employment verification, and criminal check, search against global sanctions and government watch lists, credit check, and/or drug test. You will be notified during the hiring process which checks are required by the position.

Our commitment to Inclusion

We celebrate differences and believe in fostering an environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported. We know that diverse teams are stronger, more innovative, and more successful.

At Alight, we welcome and embrace all individuals, regardless of their background, and are dedicated to creating a culture that enables every employee to thrive. Join us in building a brighter, more inclusive future., We offer you a competitive total rewards package, continuing education & training, and tremendous potential with a growing worldwide organization.

At Alight, we believe a company's success starts with its people. At our core, we Champion People, help our colleagues Grow with Purpose and true to our name we encourage colleagues to "Be Alight." Our Values: **Champion People** - be empathetic and help create a place where everyone belongs. **Grow with purpose -** Be inspired by our higher calling of improving lives. **Be Alight -** act with integrity, be real and empower others. It's why we're so driven to connect passion with purpose. Alight helps clients gain a benefits advantage while building a healthy and financially secure workforce by unifying the benefits ecosystem across health, wealth, wellbeing, absence management and navigation. With a comprehensive total rewards package, continuing education and training, and tremendous potential with a growing global organization, Alight is the perfect place to put your passion to work. Join our team if you Champion People, want to Grow with Purpose through acting with integrity and if you embody the meaning of Be Alight. Learn more at careers.alight.com (https://careers.alight.com/us/en) .