Chief Architect - Data Engineering (Databricks Practice)

Unison Group • California City, CA

6h

About The Position

We are building a fast-growing Databricks practice delivering enterprise data and AI solutions across APAC. As Lead Solution Architect – Data Engineering, you will be the technical anchor of the practice: leading solution design on client engagements, owning and defending enterprise architectures in presales, and driving large-scale migration and cloud transformation programs. This is a hands-on leadership role for a builder who can equally command a whiteboard in front of a CTO and a Spark UI when a pipeline misbehaves. You will also shape the practice itself — mentoring engineers, creating accelerators and reusable assets, and converting delivery success into case studies and go-to-market offerings.

Requirements

• 12+ years in data engineering/architecture
• 3+ years on Databricks at enterprise scale
• Deep Spark expertise — architecture, performance tuning, streaming, debugging
• Lakehouse fluency — Medallion architecture, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, governance, orchestration (Workflows, DLT/Lakeflow, Airflow, ADF)
• Experience leading large transformation programs
• Experience driving presales end-to-end: discovery, solutioning, estimation, PoCs, RFPs, and proposals
• Strong Python/SQL/Scala
• Experience with CI/CD for data platforms
• Comfort integrating ML/AI (MLflow, LLM APIs like OpenAI and Anthropic) into solutions

Nice To Haves

• Microsoft Fabric exposure
• Databricks Data Engineer Professional / SA accreditations

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end architecture and design decisions on Databricks engagements, ensuring solutions are secure, scalable, performant, and aligned with Lakehouse best practices.
• Lead delivery of production-grade data platforms — ingestion, transformation, orchestration, governance through Unity Catalog, and downstream BI/ML enablement.
• Lead large-scale migrations (legacy DW/ETL, Hadoop, on-prem estates) and cloud transformation projects to Databricks on Azure/AWS/GCP, including assessment, wave planning, and cutover.
• Stay hands-on: performance tuning, debugging, code and design reviews, and setting engineering standards for the team.
• Own and defend enterprise solution designs in front of architecture boards, CIOs, and CTOs — and enjoy it.
• Drive presales end-to-end: discovery, solutioning, estimation, PoCs, RFPs, and proposals that convert.
• Translate hard technical trade-offs into decisions executives can act on — from engineer to boardroom without changing gears.
• Mentoring engineers, creating accelerators and reusable assets, and converting delivery success into case studies and go-to-market offerings.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed