Principal Solutions Architect (Strategy/Data Governance)

Our Principal Solutions Architect plays a critical role in driving delivery excellence and ensuring customer success. As a key figure in strategic customer accounts, the Principal Solutions Architect also partners closely with Sales to drive account expansion and long-term value. We prioritize hiring not just brilliant engineers, but technical consultants who excel in both engineering and client engagement, thereby elevating the quality of our consulting services. In this role, you’ll manage multiple work streams, build executive relationships, and guide clients through complex data challenges, all while designing scalable solutions. 

This role goes beyond engineering—it's about creating value, fostering trust, building relationships, and positioning yourself as a strategic influencer in the evolving data landscape.

Required Experience:

• 8+ years as a hands-on Data Governance Leader who has designed and led the rollout of Data Governance Programs across a number of industries.
• 4+ years previous Consulting leadership experience working with external customers with the ability to multitask, prioritize tasks, frequently change focus, and work across a variety of projects. 
• Brings some vertical/industry expertise to bear in making Data Governance-related recommendations, given the nuances of each industry e.g. Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail.
• Adept at making technical recommendations that are tied to business outcomes, including but not limited to the following areas:
  • Access and provisioning.
  • Data quality measurement, issue resolution and thresholds.
  • Integration patterns.
  • Privacy and security.
  • Regulatory needs.
  • Future functionality on vendor roadmaps and what that means for the organization.
• Good knowledge of various Data Governance related technologies, including:
  • Data Catalogs e.g. Alation, Collibra, Ataccama.
  • Data Quality Tools e.g. IBM InfoSphere, Informatica, Talend.
  • Master Data Management e.g. Reltio, Profisee, TIBCO.
• Demonstrated expertise in effectively leading and managing a team comprising Business Analysts, Technical Architects and Data Engineers, fostering internal growth through coaching, mentoring, and performance management.
• Proven track record of collaborating with client stakeholders, technology partners, and cross-functional sales and delivery team members across distributed global teams, ensuring seamless, successful project delivery outcomes.
• Knowledge of global privacy requirements, e.g. GDPR, CCPA, and how to meet requirements by leveraging technology.
• Create strong cross-practice relationships to drive customer success.
• Exhibits a strong sense of ownership in resolving challenges, committed to ensuring exceptional outcomes for all aspects of project execution.
• Strong client-facing written and verbal communication skills and experience; ability to deliver presentations with compelling storylines, tailored to the target audience, from technical stakeholders through to executive teams.
• Can communicate relatively technical concepts to a non-technical audience verbally clearly and concisely.
• Has led technical discovery sessions and workshops, and brings a focus on business value to keep all participants centered on the objectives.
• Able to guide on technology rationalization decisions with criteria such as total cost of ownership (TCO) and business need in mind.
• 4-year Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field.
• Preferred: Functional Data Governance expertise and/or exposure, including:
  • Designing a governance operating model.
  • Designing processes for effective data and analytical asset management.
  • Drafting data management policies, that enable organizations to adopt Data Governance pragmatically, and with strong adoption. 

Technical Background & Expertise in any of the following: 

• Data Catalogs: Alation, Collibra, Ataccama, Purview
• Data quality tools: IBM InfoSphere, Informatica, Talend
• Master Data Management (MDM) technologies: Reltio, Profisee, TIBCO
• Production experience in core data platforms: Snowflake, AWS, Azure, GCP, Databricks
• Data integration technologies: Fivetran, Matillion, AWS DMS, Azure Data Factory
• Data transformation and workflow management: dbt, Airflow
• Experience with data modeling techniques and technologies (e.g. SqlDBM, erwin)
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g. AWS, Azure) and their respective services

Why phData? We offer:

• Remote-First Work Environment 
• Casual, award-winning small-business work environment
• Collaborative culture that prizes autonomy, creativity, and transparency
• Competitive comp, excellent benefits, 4 weeks PTO plan plus 10 Holidays (and other cool perks)
• Accelerated learning and professional development through advanced training and certifications