Principal Data Architect

LPL Financial•Fort Mill, SC

1d•$155,942 - $259,869

About The Position

We are seeking a visionary and experienced Principal Data Architect to define and lead the enterprise data architecture strategy for cloud-native data platforms and systems of record. This role will drive the evolution of modern data ecosystems, enabling scalable, secure, resilient, and trusted data solutions that support business growth, digital transformation, and data-driven decision making. The successful candidate will partner with Product, Engineering, Security, Operations, and Enterprise Architecture teams to establish architectural standards, modernization roadmaps, and technology strategies while providing technical leadership across multiple strategic initiatives.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in Data Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, or large-scale data platform engineering.
10+ years strong expertise in AWS cloud services and platform architecture.
5+ years experience of Data Lakes, Data Warehouses, Lakehouse architectures, and modern distributed data platforms.
10+ years experience with domain-driven design, event-driven architecture, and enterprise integration patterns.
5+ years experience of enterprise security architectures including IAM, authentication, authorization, encryption, and data protection.
Experience with metadata management, data catalogs, lineage, governance, and observability frameworks.

Nice To Haves

AWS Solutions Architect Professional, AWS Data Engineer, or related cloud certifications.
Experience implementing Lakehouse architectures using Apache Iceberg, Delta Lake, or similar technologies.
Experience with AWS DataZone, Lake Formation, Glue Data Catalog, Athena, EMR, Redshift, and S3-based data platforms.
Experience with Data Mesh, Data Products, and domain-oriented ownership models.
Experience building enterprise metadata, lineage, data governance, and self-service data platforms.
Experience designing active-active and active-passive multi-region architectures.
Experience supporting large-scale modernization and digital transformation initiatives.
Experience in financial services, wealth management, brokerage, banking, insurance, or other regulated industries.
Understanding of wealth management products, client servicing models, operational processes, and associated data domains is highly desirable.
Familiarity with SAFe and Agile delivery methodologies.

Responsibilities

Define and drive enterprise data architecture strategy, roadmaps, and target-state blueprints.
Lead architectural initiatives and collaborate with product and engineering teams to design scalable and sustainable solutions.
Establish architecture standards, design principles, reference architectures, and best practices for enterprise data platforms.
Translate business objectives into technology strategies and architecture roadmaps.
Contribute to enterprise architecture governance, technology standards, and modernization initiatives.
Design and implement cloud-native data platforms leveraging AWS services and modern architectural patterns.
Lead the adoption of Lakehouse architectures utilizing open table formats such as Apache Iceberg and Delta Lake.
Drive implementation of domain-oriented architectures, Data Products, Data Mesh principles, and self-service data platforms where appropriate.
Define enterprise standards for data domains, metadata management, data catalogs, lineage, and data discovery.
Architect scalable data ingestion, processing, storage, and distribution patterns supporting batch, streaming, and near real-time workloads.
Establish architectural patterns for authoritative Systems of Record and Books of Record.
Define strategies for data ownership, data integrity, auditability, lineage, historical data management, and reconciliation.
Drive enterprise data governance, quality, observability, and metadata management capabilities.
Partner with business and technology teams to create trusted, reusable, and governed data assets.
Architect secure data platforms including authentication, authorization, encryption, key management, and fine-grained access controls.
Design highly available, multi-region cloud architectures supporting resiliency, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements.
Define non-functional requirements covering scalability, reliability, performance, recoverability, and operational supportability.
Establish observability, monitoring, operational health, and platform reliability standards.
Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance across multiple teams and programs.
Mentor architects and engineers on modern data architecture principles and cloud-native design patterns.
Communicate complex technical concepts and trade-offs to executive leadership and business stakeholders.
Drive adoption of architecture best practices through governance, scorecards, and technical reviews.