Principal Data Architect

Location: Harrisburg, PA
Work Arrangement: Hybrid - 1 day onsite per week (Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday)

About the role

We are seeking an experienced Enterprise Data Architect to help define and evolve enterprise information architecture and reusable data products supporting large-scale modernization, transformation, analytics, and future AI initiatives. This is a highly strategic, hands-on architecture role for someone who can bridge business needs and technical implementation. You will work across business, product, engineering, cloud, integration, and data teams to establish a sustainable enterprise data foundation, promote reuse across domains, and prevent the creation of new data silos. The ideal candidate combines deep enterprise/data architecture expertise with practical experience in data modeling, governance, cloud data platforms, modernization, and data-centric architecture.

Responsibilities

• Enterprise Information Architecture
  • Define conceptual and logical data models for common business entities.
  • Establish canonical data models and enterprise information standards.
  • Define relationships between enterprise and domain-specific data assets.
  • Incorporate data classification, privacy, security, and regulatory requirements into architecture by design.
• Modernization & Transformation
  • Partner with product and engineering teams to embed reusable data products into modern solutions.
  • Analyze legacy environments and identify information assets suitable for enterprise reuse.
  • Help prevent duplication of data structures across applications and domains.
  • Support data migration strategies and target-state architecture.
• Data Product Architecture
  • Identify and support the design of reusable enterprise data products.
  • Define schemas, interfaces, metadata, and data quality requirements.
  • Establish appropriate product boundaries, stewardship, and ownership models.
• Data Governance & Metadata
  • Establish data architecture principles, standards, guidelines, and best practices.
  • Support data cataloging, lineage, observability, security, and interoperability.
  • Define business terminology and data quality expectations.
• Cloud & Technology Collaboration
  • Translate business concepts into scalable technical designs.
  • Partner with cloud, integration, engineering, and data teams to implement enterprise data products.
  • Promote API-first and product-based approaches to information sharing.
• AI Enablement
  • Ensure enterprise data products are discoverable, governed, and ready for future AI use cases.
  • Support semantic layers, knowledge graphs, and natural-language access to enterprise information.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in Data Architecture, Information Architecture, or Enterprise Architecture.
• 8+ years of hands-on experience in data architecture, data engineering, advanced database design, or data modeling.
• Strong experience designing or implementing data warehouses, data marts, and MDM concepts/tools.
• 5+ years working with modern data platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, or MongoDB, and big-data solutions within AWS, Azure, or GCP ecosystems.
• Strong conceptual and logical data modeling expertise.
• Experience with data governance, metadata, data lineage, data quality, and data standards.
• Experience addressing data security, privacy, regulatory requirements, and sensitive data.
• Demonstrated involvement in large-scale modernization or digital transformation initiatives involving multiple domains and stakeholders.
• Ability to translate complex business requirements into sustainable enterprise architecture.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity, develop work plans independently, and lead/influence teams without direct authority.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Systems Programming, or an equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within Public Sector, Healthcare, or Financial Services environments is strongly preferred.
• Candidates with previous experience as an Enterprise Data Architect, Enterprise Information Architect, Principal Architect, or Solution Architect supporting large enterprise transformation initiatives are especially relevant.
• Experience working with unstructured data is a plus.

What Success Looks Like

During the first year, you will help:

• Establish enterprise information architecture principles and standards.
• Define reusable data products for priority business domains.
• Support modernization initiatives through model implementations.
• Introduce metadata, stewardship, and ownership standards.
• Enable teams to reuse common data assets rather than recreate them.
• Build the data foundation required for enterprise analytics and future AI capabilities.

Onsite Location: 607 South Drive, Forum Building, Harrisburg, PA