Director- Azure Cloud Data Architect

Job Title: Microsoft Fabric Data Architect (Role: Director)

Practice Area: Advisory Technology

Geo Location: India, KGS

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Job Summary: We are seeking an experienced and dynamic Senior Data Architect with a specialized focus on Microsoft Fabric to join our growing team. In this role, you will leverage your deep expertise in data architecture and cloud solutions to design and implement innovative data integration and analytics solutions powered by Microsoft Fabric. As a strategic leader, you will be responsible for creating a unified data ecosystem that enhances data accessibility, drives insights, and supports data-driven decision-making across the organization. Your role will be crucial in enabling our teams to harness the full potential of Microsoft Fabric, ensuring that our data architecture aligns with best practices in data governance, security, and scalability. Join us in transforming our data landscape and empowering our business with cutting-edge solutions that propel us into the future.

Skills 

• Hands-on experience in Microsoft Fabric, including designing and implementing Pipelines, PySpark Notebooks, Lakehouses, Warehouses, Dataflows, and Semantic Models. Strong knowledge of all aspects of Microsoft Fabric.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure (Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as Service (SaaS) across Microsoft Azure cloud and the Microsoft technology stack.
• Rapid Development / Rapid Prototyping development experience.
• Excellent communication skills including listening to, understanding, and explaining key concepts to managerial and technical audiences.
• 20+ years of experience in developing and architecting enterprise-class, distributed software solutions & Working knowledge of building scalable, software-as-a-service 
• 10 + years of experience in Cloud Data Architecture.
• (SaaS) solutions using micro-services architecture
• Experience with Big Data solutions on Azure and delivering data pipelines (e.g. Azure Data Lake Service, Power BI, Azure Data Bricks, Azure Synapse and Azure Data Factory)
• Nice to Have: Power Apps and Low-code platforms (Service Now, Salesforce, Appian, Out Systems)
• Develop a full stack cloud architecture for life cycle management. Define components of the architecture that can be sourced externally (open source) or built-in house. Work with a diverse team of architects and engineers both within and across product teams to collaboratively build a cohesive architecture.
• Create architectural pattern and crucial components of a software architecture. Create reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software architecture in a certain context. Apply Design pattern best practice to solve common problems when designing an application or system.
• Proficient in any enterprise programming language C#, Java, Python etc.

Responsibilities: 

You will be part of a core architectural team with following responsibilities:

• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Fabric and all its components. Design and implement secure data architectures using Microsoft Fabric, including secure connectivity between Fabric and non-Fabric resources.  Evaluate projects suitability for utilizing MS Fabric vs alternative solutions.
• Stay informed about the Microsoft Fabric release roadmap, participate in private previews, and evaluate the impact of future functionality on our solutions.
• Architecture Design: Lead the design and implementation of data architecture solutions, utilizing Microsoft Fabric and Azure to enable data integration, management, and analytics across various data sources.
• Data Strategy Development: Develop and execute a comprehensive data strategy that aligns with business goals, ensuring best practices in data governance, quality, and security.
• Cloud Solutions: Architect and implement cloud-based data solutions, leveraging Azure services such as Azure Data Lake, Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Databricks, Azure SQL Database, and Azure Data Factory.
• Performance Optimization: Monitor and optimize the performance of data solutions, ensuring high availability, scalability, and reliability.
• Mentorship: Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior data architects and engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
• Strong knowledge of Data Management principles. Experience in building ETL / data warehouse transformation processes. Designing and implementing highly performant data ingestion pipelines from multiple sources using Apache Spark and/or Azure Databricks. Hands on experience in Microsoft Fabric, Azure Data factory, Azure Databricks, Python, Scala/PySpark, Azure Data Lake. 
• Develop a full stack cloud architecture for life cycle management. Define components of the architecture that can be sourced externally (open source) or built-in house. Work with a diverse team of architects and engineers both within and across product teams to collaboratively build a cohesive architecture.
• Create architectural pattern and crucial components of a software architecture. Create reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software architecture in a certain context. Apply Design pattern best practice to solve common problems when designing an application or system.
• Rapid prototyping is all about getting an idea in front of users, collecting feedback, and quickly refining and iterating your idea based on that feedback. It’s an indefinite loop, which should be utilized over and over until the team is satisfied with their validated approach.      In support of this mission, we are looking for Director that can lead, design, and implement quickly using state of the art methods and tools.  The Director will have extensive experience using high and low fidelity prototyping approaches and the discipline to quickly determine the best approach in service of the customer’s goals.
• The Director will be responsible for engaging with the project stakeholders.  All project stakeholders - developers, clients, software users and teams - communicate to determine the project’s requirements, and strategies for tackling potential issues that may arise during development.  The Director will possess superior communication and presentation skills, ensuring every stakeholder is on the same page early in the development cycle and assisting teams with avoiding miscommunication and costly mistakes.  The Director will have the flexibility and maturity to adapt to changing requirements and support change at any point in the development cycle.
• The Director will have experience leading and directing small, focused, teams in building out initial models and prototypes. The goal is to rapidly produce a working design that can be demonstrated to the client.   The Director leads designers and developers, working together with clients until a final product is ready, ensuring the client’s needs are being met. This step is repeated as often as is necessary as the project evolves.  The Director has experience in multiple SDLC disciplines including Waterfall, Agile, and everything in between.  The Director has the experience to use whatever method works in service of the customer’s goals and desires. 
• Rapid construction is where application coding, system testing, and unit integration occurs, converting prototypes and beta systems into working models. The Director has extensive experience in multiple programming tools and techniques in service of this goal including low-code, no-code, and/or rapid application development tools to quickly progress the application.  The Director has experience in finalizing and packaging products and readying them for launch.  The Director has taken multiple components, products, and packaged solutions through project end states including moving to a live production environment and supporting full-scale testing to identify product bugs.
• The Director and team quickly create and share working prototypes, allowing businesses to review functionality earlier in the software life cycle. The frequent iterations and nature of feedback allow all aspects to be easily evaluated, enabling measurable progress that determine if schedules and budgets are on track.  Integration with other systems and services traditionally occurs at the end of a development life cycle, but rapidly developed applications are integrated almost immediately. Testing occurs during every iteration, enabling stakeholders to quickly identify and discuss errors, code vulnerabilities or complications, and immediately resolve them without impacting the progress of development.  The Director has the discipline to determine an adequate test while not over testing.  The Director can further identify the key areas needed for improvement and prioritize this work to get done quickly.  A reduction in risk means a reduction in cost.  The Director can quickly identify risk and develop mitigation and contingency plans to address these problems.
• The Director possesses the ability to lead, inspire, guide, develop, and encourage the team in very stressful situations.  The Director is the team’s biggest supporter and as a player/ coach, supports the team in supporting the goals of clients and customers. 

Qualifications: 

• College degree or equivalent experience required (20 + years) in the technology implementation space. 
• Technical or Professional Certification in Domain (e.g., Development, Test, Deployment Technologies, and/or project management disciplines) preferred
• Demonstrated understanding of public cloud infrastructure, primarily Microsoft Azure, and some familiarity with Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform
• Experience of designing and building applications using microservices & Hands on application of design patterns for building enterprise applications
• Travel as necessary
• Strong verbal/written communication, with ability to effectively interact with individuals at all levels of responsibility and authority