Databricks Architect

• Establish, lead, or mature a Databricks Center of Excellence (CoE) - defining standards, reusable patterns, governance frameworks, and best practices across the organization

• Own end-to-end delivery accountability across multiple Databricks workstreams and project teams
• Define and enforce architectural standards, design patterns, and platform governance for Databricks usage enterprise-wide
• Partner with project/program leadership to ensure delivery milestones, quality gates, and risk management practices are consistently applied

• Develop and maintain reusable accelerators, templates, and reference architectures to improve delivery speed and consistency across teams

• Drive platform governance: workspace structure, Unity Catalog standards, cost optimization, security, and access control policies

• Act as the senior escalation point for architectural and delivery decisions across the Databricks program

• Mentor and upskill distributed/offshore teams on Databricks best practices, coding standards, and delivery methodology
• Lead architecture review boards and design governance sessions to ensure solutions align with CoE standards

• Track and report on CoE maturity, adoption metrics, and delivery KPIs to executive stakeholders

• Stay current on Databricks platform roadmap and proactively recommend adoption of new capabilities across the organization
• Support pre-sales, estimation, and solutioning efforts by providing delivery-tested architectural guidance

• 8+ years of overall data engineering/architecture experience; 5+ years specifically on Databricks

• Demonstrated, hands-on experience establishing or scaling a Databricks (or comparable data platform) Center of Excellence
• Extensive experience delivering multiple Databricks engagements - ideally across different clients, industries, or business units
• Strong understanding of Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, medallion architecture, and Databricks governance capabilities

• Proven track record defining and rolling out architectural standards, design patterns, and delivery frameworks across teams

• Experience with at least one major hyperscaler - AWS, Azure, or GCP - sufficient to guide governance and architecture decisions

• Strong program/delivery management acumen - able to balance technical depth with delivery accountability, timelines, and risk

• Demonstrated experience managing or mentoring distributed/offshore delivery teams at scale
• Excellent executive communication skills - able to present CoE strategy, maturity, and value to senior client and internal leadership
• Demonstrated awareness of and curiosity about the evolving AI landscape, including how enterprise AI capabilities intersect with data platform governance and CoE strategy

$50 - $70 an hour - Full-time, Contract