Data Architect, Lead

About FlightSafety International

FlightSafety International is the world’s premier professional aviation training company and supplier of flight simulators, visual systems and displays to commercial, government and military organizations. The company provides training for pilots, technicians and other aviation professionals from 167 countries and independent territories. FlightSafety operates the world’s largest fleet of advanced full-flight simulators and award-winning maintenance training at Learning Centers and training locations in the United States, Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

Purpose of Position

The Lead Data Architect is a senior member of the Data team responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining enterprise and system-level conceptual, logical, and physical data models using Data Vault methodology within a Data Mesh architecture. This role translates the organization’s data product strategy into actionable architecture solutions, ensuring data models, standards, and domain-aligned data products are consistently delivered across the enterprise. The Lead Data Architect works closely with data domain owners, Data Engineers, Analytics teams, and business stakeholders to build and evolve scalable, well-governed data products on the organization’s Databricks-based platform, leveraging a custom automation framework and modern lakehouse patterns to drive domain-oriented, self-serve data capabilities.

Tasks and Responsibilities

•    Lead the design and development of conceptual, logical, and physical data models using Data Vault methodology for the enterprise Databricks lakehouse platform, ensuring alignment with architectural standards and business requirements
•    Architect and evolve domain-aligned data products within a Data Mesh framework, ensuring each data domain delivers discoverable, addressable, trustworthy, and self-describing data products
•    Collaborate with data domain owners, Data Engineering, Analytics, and Business Relationship Management (BRM) teams to translate business needs into robust, domain-oriented data architecture solutions
•    Define and maintain data modeling standards, naming conventions, and design patterns that support Data Vault modeling, Data Mesh principles, and a consistent data product lifecycle across the enterprise
•    Design and extend the organization’s custom automation framework on Databricks, leveraging latest platform components (Unity Catalog, Delta Live Tables, Databricks Workflows, Databricks Asset Bundles) to accelerate data product delivery
•    Develop and enforce a decision-making framework aligned with data domains and data products, enabling domain teams to make autonomous architecture decisions within guardrails
•    Drive the implementation of master data management (MDM), metadata management, and data governance initiatives, leveraging Unity Catalog and platform-native capabilities for federated governance
•    Conduct data architecture reviews for projects and data products to ensure compliance with enterprise data standards, Data Mesh principles, policies, and security requirements
•    Collaborate with the CISO and data protection teams to ensure data classifications, data zoning, and security requirements are embedded into data product and platform designs
•    Create and maintain architecture documentation, including data product specifications, data flow diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, data dictionaries, and domain boundary definitions
•    Support the development of enterprise data governance processes and structures, including data quality frameworks, data contracts, and data product SLAs
•    Identify and resolve data architecture issues, including data redundancy, cross-domain integration challenges, and performance bottlenecks across the Databricks platform
•    Participate in strategic roadmap planning by providing technical assessments and architecture recommendations for data products and analytics initiatives
•    Evaluate emerging Databricks features, partner integrations, and data management trends to recommend improvements to the platform and automation framework
•    Mentor and provide technical guidance to Data Engineers and junior team members on Data Vault modeling, Data Mesh practices, and platform best practices
•    Facilitate communication with Databricks and other technology partners for technical evaluation, proof-of-concept efforts, and troubleshooting
•    Balance tactical project delivery with adherence to long-term data product strategy and enterprise architectural vision
•    Be accountable and responsible for the accuracy and completeness of assigned work and results
•    Prioritize and manage workload and communicate issues clearly
•    Complete other tasks as required
•    Travel when required

Minimum Education