Data Architect

Southern Company•Birmingham, AL

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Data Architect Location Birmingham, AL Summary We are seeking an experienced Data Architect to lead the strategy, roadmap, architecture, and implementation of data management and AI solutions supporting Commercial Operations modernization. This role will help shape the evolution of our hybrid data platform, support delivery of trusted data products, and enable scalable, governed analytics and AI-ready capabilities. This is a hands-on architecture role. The successful candidate will translate architecture into implementation by leading proofs of concept, establishing reference patterns, guiding technical delivery, and personally contributing to selected prototypes, data products, integrations, or platform capabilities where direct involvement will accelerate delivery, validate architecture decisions, or reduce implementation risk. The position will work closely with business leaders, software engineers, database professionals, data engineers, and fellow architects to deliver practical, secure, scalable, and business-focused solutions.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline strongly preferred. Four years of relevant technical experience may substitute for the degree requirement.
8+ years IT experience.
5+ years designing data solutions.
2+ years of solution, data, or enterprise architecture experience.
Strong SQL Server expertise.
Experience with data warehousing, dimensional modeling, data lakes, and integration platforms.
Experience designing APIs and event-driven architectures.
Experience building enterprise analytics solutions.
Experience translating business needs into architecture decisions and practical technical solutions.
Demonstrated experience designing and delivering production data platforms, data products, analytics solutions, or integration services.

Nice To Haves

Master Data Management experience.
Experience designing solutions that integrate structured and unstructured data for analytics, reporting, or AI workloads.
Experience designing or implementing AI-enabled data platforms, including RAG, semantic search, vector databases, AI pipelines, knowledge graphs, or similar technologies.
Experience with hybrid data and analytics platforms, including technologies such as Microsoft Fabric, Databricks, Power BI, Azure, and SQL Server.
Experience with modern data engineering, integration, and transformation technologies such as C#/.NET, Python, CloverDX, SQL-based transformation frameworks, orchestration platforms, or similar technologies.
Experience building data pipelines, integration services, or transformation solutions containing significant business logic.
Experience with source control, automated testing, CI/CD, observability, deployment automation, and production-support practices.
Experience creating reusable frameworks, shared libraries, reference implementations, or platform capabilities that accelerate delivery across teams.
Experience enabling self-service analytics through trusted data products, curated datasets, semantic models, or governed reporting platforms.
Utility industry experience.

Responsibilities

Define and maintain enterprise data architecture roadmaps.
Lead development of master data, metadata, and governance strategies.
Architect modern data platforms, data products, and integration services.
Lead implementation of priority data products, platform capabilities, and integration patterns from concept through production deployment.
Design solutions for structured and unstructured data.
Partner with business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions.
Define data modeling standards and integration patterns.
Develop proofs of concept, reference implementations, and reusable architecture patterns that accelerate delivery and adoption.
Drive adoption of AI-ready architecture patterns, including vector search, knowledge retrieval, and machine learning workloads.
Guide platform observability, automation, deployment, and governance practices.
Participate in critical design, implementation, troubleshooting, and modernization efforts where direct architectural involvement will improve delivery outcomes.
Facilitate architectural reviews and technology selection decisions, building consensus and obtaining formal approval through established governance forums.
Establish practical, adoptable standards and validate them through implementation.
Work with engineers and technical leaders to ensure architecture patterns can be delivered successfully in production.
Mentor developers, engineers, and architects.