Data Architect

Overview of role

Office: London (hybrid - 2 days per week required as a min in the office)

The Data Architect will be responsible for owning and executing Walkers' Enterprise Data Strategy. This will include leading and influencing the alignment of data strategy, and data architecture, across multiple service lines, and programmes of work. The Data Architect will be responsible for translating Walkers' data strategy into clear, actionable roadmaps of data-orientated solutions. The role holder will be responsible for setting and enforcing the standards, patterns and principles involving enterprise data, and ensuring that that any area within the firm working for or on behalf of Walkers follows these. As part of this, the role holder will be responsible for embedding data quality, metadata and compliance requirements into reference architecture and associated standards, patterns and principles. Expected to be a key decision maker within Walkers' data governance board, the role holder will work alongside Security, and Compliance stakeholders to advise, facilitate and support the enterprise' data governance approach. The Data Architect will become a key role as new business models and opportunities arise from an increased use of technology such as Machine Learning and AI.  The role holder will be expected to have a deep understanding of SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and Hybrid cloud technologies with a particularly deep understanding of Azure portfolio of data services. The Data Architect will be expected to be a champion of adopting such cloud technologies, understanding where these can help drive the firm to meet its objectives while also understand where and when it is not appropriate.

The Data Architect role will also have a responsibility to provide Architectural oversight of the technologies used within the firms, on behalf of the Strategy & Architecture Department. The role will report to the Lead Solutions Architect and be expected, along with all other architects to be consultative in the areas they are extremely competent in as well as having the aptitude to quickly understand new and emerging technologies. The role will also have a responsibility to help choose and manage suppliers involved in any other assigned project deliverables. The Data Architect should have experience of creating and working with Enterprise Architecture artefacts and be familiar with working with working with data modelling, data quality tools, business intelligence and reporting.

Job Duties

• Be seen as a leader in all IT projects and, enterprise strategy, on areas related to data, BI and reporting.
• Translate Walkers' data strategy into executable data architecture roadmaps ensuring that the solutions in the roadmap directly align with business objectives.
• Partner with stakeholders (business leaders, data analyst, engineers) to align architecture with data governance, analytics and operational needs.
• Define and drive forward the firm’s adoption of data driven decision making. This would include driving proposals for new data driven revenue streams and reporting.
• Own the refinement and continuous refresh of Walkers' existing data strategy to adapt to business demands. 
• Provide clear, continuous, and consistent data architecture leadership at all levels of project delivery lifecycles. This would include high-level data architecture assurance and low-level/detailed design guidance.
• Architect data-orientated solutions across multi-cloud and on-prem environments. This would include solutions for data lake-houses, master data management and metadata management.
• Design and maintain enterprise data models (conceptual, logical and physical) across transactional, analytical and operational systems.
• Establish reference architecture for data ingestion, transformation, storage and consumption.
• Support initiatives from a data perspective, ensuring that these help to build towards an overall future-state data architecture.
• Work with the Applications and Database team to help drive adoption of best data related practices.
• Create and maintain architectural documentation as artefacts that relate to data and analytics such as architectural designs, patterns, principles and standards and technology selection.
• Create and own the firm’s standard non-functional requirements for all data related projects and technology selections.
• Collaborate with data stewards and compliance teams to ensure adherence to regulatory standards (e.g., GDPR). This would also include providing guidance/advice on information management best practices.
• Continual research on data technology, management and working practices to remain abreast of developments in across the IT industry in multiple verticals and not just Legal.
• Act as a bridge between business vision and engineering execution.

Education, Skills & Experience

• University degree in Computer Science or other relevant discipline or relevant IT experience.
• ToGAF 9 or higher certified.
• Experience of working with wide variety of data - structured, semi structured & unstructured - and associated data sources.
• Previous experience as a Data Architect building and executing a data strategy.
• Deep knowledge of the data architecture lifecycle, from concept to deployment and consumption.
• Hands-on experience in contextual data modelling, entity relationship modelling, logical & physical data modelling and data lake design.
• Proven experience in architecting enterprise-ready data warehouse, data lakehouse, and master data management solutions.
• Deep hands-on experience in architecting enterprise data platforms using Azure-native components and data services. This would include but not limited to
  • Azure Synapse Analytics for data warehousing and big data analytics
  • Azure data lake Gen1/Gen2
  • Azure Data factory for ETL/ELT, hybrid data integration and pipelines
  • Azure Databricks for data processing and analytics
  • Azure CosmosDB, Azure Table Storage and Azure Blob Storage
  • Microsoft Fabric
  • Azure Purview for data governance among others. 

• Proven experience in designing, implementing and integrating data management platforms for data cataloguing, classification and metadata management.
• Experience of integrating 3rd party platforms like Profisee, Semarchy, CluedIn and/or Reltio with Azure Purview and other Azure-native data-services.
• Good understanding of cloud networking architecture, operations, automation and cost management in context of data-orientated solutions.
• Experience with working with accounting and finance systems preferably in a Law firm or professional services firm.
• Experience in leveraging APIs for system-to-system data integration.
• Knowledge and experience of working with Azure-native AI and ML services, as part of enterprise data solutions and platforms.
• Proven experience in establishing, owning and managing an enterprise data model of various data domains including but not limited to HR, Marketing, Finance, Client and Documents.
• Knowledge of applicable data privacy practices and laws.
• Experience in an architectural role. Ideally some of which at a Law firm.

Personal and Professional Requirements

• Ability and willingness to occasionally work outside normal working hours/days when requested.
• Decisive and confident in one’s own ability and recommendations
• An understanding that occasional international business travel will be necessary
• Strong written, oral and presentation communication skills.
• Excellent inter-personal skills and ability to present ideas and proposals in user-friendly language
• A passion for continually staying up to date and evaluating where new technology can add value to the business.
• Highly self-motivated and directed, with keen attention to detail.
• Trusted advisor with the ability to step in and help support teams in advice and consultancy when necessary.
• Able to effectively prioritize tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Experience working in a geographically dispersed team-oriented, collaborative environment.

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