Solution Architect Data Platforms

About the role

We are the leading provider of professional services to the middle market globally, our purpose is to instill confidence in a world of change, empowering our clients and people to realize their full potential. Our exceptional people are the key to our unrivaled, culture and talent experience and our ability to be compelling to our clients. You’ll find an environment that inspires and empowers you to thrive both personally and professionally. There’s no one like you and that’s why there’s nowhere like RSM. The Solution Architect - Data Platforms owns the current and target-state architecture for RSM's analytical and data platform ecosystem, servicing both our internal and client-facing business units. This role evolves the core data platform stack, partners with the Solution Architect - Data Solutions Architect on canonical models and inbound contracts and represents platform architecture in ARB and steering committee reviews.

Responsibilities

• Own the enterprise data platform architecture, including lakehouse/medallion (bronze/silver/gold) layering for the analytical platform serving Assurance, Consulting, Tax, and cross-LOB portfolios.
• Evaluate and recommend platform technologies for storage, compute, and orchestration (e.g., Databricks, Snowflake, Azure Synapse/Fabric, ADLS), producing architecture decision records for steering committee review.
• Design ingestion, ELT/ETL, and orchestration patterns spanning batch, micro-batch, and workloads.
• Adhere to data governance and catalog architecture, partnering with data stewardship on lineage, classification, and data quality using Microsoft Purview.
• Establish reference architecture and platform standards, including access controls, data residency, SOC 2 / SOX compliance, and IRS 7216 requirements.
• Partner with the Solution Architect - Data Solutions Architect to align canonical data models, conformed dimensions, and integration contracts feeding the platform.
• Guide build-vs-buy decisions and platform proof-of-concepts, comparing target architecture options (e.g., Medallion vs. Kimball, Inmon, Data Vault 2.0, Data Mesh) and documenting trade-offs.
• Lead capacity and cost architecture for compute and storage, including FinOps considerations across cloud consumption.
• Maintain platform documentation: reference architecture, data flow diagrams, architecture decision records.
• Sponsor ARB submissions for platform-related initiatives and ensure adherence to enterprise architecture governance.