Senior / Principal Snowflake Architect – FinOps, Governance & Security

About the role

We are seeking a Senior / Principal-level Snowflake Architect for an initial 8-10 week consulting engagement supporting the assessment of a large, complex enterprise Snowflake environment. This is a highly consultative, architecture and advisory-focused role. The primary focus will be Snowflake FinOps, compute optimization, cost management, governance, security, and overall platform architecture. The ideal candidate will have experience entering an established enterprise Snowflake environment, quickly understanding how the platform is being utilized, identifying the root causes of excessive consumption and cost, and developing a practical roadmap for optimization and remediation. This is not primarily a Snowflake development role. We are looking for a senior SME who can assess the Snowflake ecosystem holistically, identify architectural and operational gaps, provide actionable recommendations, and guide technical and business stakeholders toward a more optimized, governed, secure, and cost-effective platform.

Responsibilities

• Conduct a comprehensive assessment of a large-scale enterprise Snowflake environment.
• Evaluate current-state Snowflake architecture, configuration, governance, security, ingestion, ETL/ELT, integration, and operational processes.
• Lead the Snowflake FinOps and compute optimization assessment.
• Analyze Snowflake consumption, workloads, queries, warehouses, and usage patterns to identify drivers of excessive cost.
• Identify opportunities to improve compute utilization, workload management, resource allocation, and overall platform efficiency.
• Evaluate cost visibility, budgeting, forecasting, chargeback/showback, and ongoing FinOps governance practices.
• Identify unnecessary or inefficient querying, warehouse utilization, data-management practices, and architectural patterns contributing to increased consumption.
• Assess Snowflake governance frameworks, including standards, policies, ownership, processes, controls, and operating models.
• Review Snowflake security architecture, including roles, permissions, access controls, administrative access, and security best practices.
• Evaluate the current environment against Snowflake architecture, security, governance, and optimization best practices.
• Assess data ingestion and integration processes and their impact on Snowflake performance, cost, and governance.
• Evaluate Snowflake's interaction with the broader enterprise data ecosystem, including Informatica and other integration technologies.
• Identify architectural, operational, governance, security, and configuration gaps.
• Distinguish symptoms from underlying/root causes and develop practical recommendations.
• Identify quick wins and low-hanging opportunities that can be addressed during the assessment.
• Develop a prioritized current-state to future-state roadmap and remediation plan.
• Participate in technical discovery sessions, stakeholder interviews, and architecture discussions.
• Clearly communicate findings, risks, recommendations, priorities, and remediation strategies to technical and business stakeholders.
• Prepare and present final assessment findings and recommendations to leadership and relevant stakeholders.
• Provide guidance to technical teams on recommended Snowflake architecture, governance, security, and operating practices.

Requirements

• Extensive experience designing, assessing, and supporting large-scale