Principal Architect - Snowflake

SHI International Corp.•US - TX - Home Office, TX

1d•$195,000 - $250,000

About The Position

We are expanding our Snowflake capability within the Data and AI practice, and we are looking for a Principal Solutions Architect to lead the technical side of it. You will be in front of customers from the start, qualifying opportunities, running technical discovery with customer architects and data leaders, designing target platforms, and owning the technical win. Most of the work in front of us is focused on platform build-out and migration, helping enterprises consolidate onto Snowflake from SAP, Oracle, Teradata, and other established estates. This is where we need the strongest expertise. This is a senior individual contributor role with significant influence over what we build and sell. It is ideal for someone who wants to shape a capability rather than operate within one that is already established.

Requirements

Account and environment design
Warehouse and compute architecture
Open table format strategy
Connectivity and data residency design
Cost architecture decisions that impact long-term scalability and affordability
Migrating enterprises from SAP, Oracle, Teradata, SQL Server, appliance platforms, and increasingly other cloud data warehouses
Assessments and migration planning
Wave planning and execution
Schema and workload conversion
Reconciliation and parity validation
Cutover planning and execution
Experience extracting data from tightly licensed ERP environments is highly valuable, including understanding: Inherited semantic layers, Data extraction challenges, Commercial licensing considerations
Data ingestion
Data transformation
Pipeline orchestration
Testing frameworks
Data quality instrumentation
Experience designing and implementing: Consistent business definitions that can be used across the organization, Shared semantic layers consumable by people, BI tools, and AI agents, Enterprise data models that ensure consistency across downstream consumers
Experience with: Data classification, Access policies, Data masking, Lineage management
Candidates should understand how Snowflake governance integrates with enterprise governance frameworks and be able to address governance challenges that cross platform boundaries.
Strong understanding of: Credit consumption management, Warehouse sizing, Workload placement strategies, Cost optimization and monitoring
Candidates must be able to speak confidently with customers about platform costs and provide practical guidance on maintaining cost efficiency.
Deep expertise in platform architecture
Deep expertise in migration and consolidation
Deep expertise in data engineering
Sufficient proficiency across the remaining areas to identify when specialist support is needed
Substantial hands-on Snowflake experience gained through: A Snowflake partner organization, Snowflake directly, Managing a significant Snowflake environment internally
This role requires Snowflake-specific expertise rather than general data platform leadership experience.
Proven experience delivering enterprise-scale migration and consolidation initiatives.
Ability to discuss at least one major migration engagement in detail, including lessons learned and outcomes.
Experience moving data from SAP and Oracle environments is particularly valuable.
Demonstrated success operating at Principal Architect level or equivalent.
Recognized as the senior technical authority in customer engagements.
Trusted to commit organizations to technical approaches, architectures, and delivery scopes.
Experience in presales environments, or Delivery leadership experience with demonstrated ability to: Lead customer discussions, Define scope and approach, Develop proposals and Statements of Work, Stand behind commitments made during the sales process
Comfortable collaborating with and being challenged by vendor architects and technical specialists.
Snowflake certification preferred.
Ability to obtain certification quickly if not already certified.

Nice To Haves

The ability to design platforms that remain operationally and financially sustainable at scale is critical.
Building reliable, production-ready engineering processes rather than proof-of-concept implementations
This is an area of increasing investment within Snowflake and an area where many customers require significant guidance.
Certification support and funding are provided

Responsibilities

Own the Technical Side of Snowflake Pursuits: Lead qualification, discovery, target architecture design, effort and risk sizing, and development of technical content for proposals and Statements of Work (SOWs).
Build and maintain technical relationships with customer architects and technical stakeholders.
Provide accurate assessments of migration effort, complexity, and risk, helping customers understand the true scope of their transformation initiatives.
Provide Architectural Oversight Through Delivery: Review architecture decisions throughout delivery.
Ensure the delivered solution aligns with what was originally scoped and proposed.
Identify and address risks or issues early in the project lifecycle.
Remain engaged in delivery to maintain accountability for the technical solution and outcomes.
Shape Snowflake Service Offerings: Define the technical content of Snowflake-focused service offerings.
Establish service scope, success criteria, and measurable outcomes.
Determine what evidence demonstrates successful delivery.
Create repeatable frameworks and standards that delivery teams can execute consistently.
Partner with Snowflake: Collaborate directly with Snowflake field teams and specialist architects on joint customer engagements.
Build productive relationships with vendor teams while representing the organization’s technical perspective.
Effectively navigate technical challenges, feedback, and differing viewpoints from Snowflake architects and specialists