Sr. Data Architect

SteerBridge•Washington, DC

2d•$150,000 - $185,000•Hybrid

About The Position

SteerBridge seeks a Senior Data Architect to own the enterprise data architecture strategy for its Modern Disability Claims program. The role sets technical direction for how claims, clinical, and healthcare data is modeled, stored, integrated, and governed across systems, ensuring infrastructure can scale to support claims adjudication, analytics, and AI/ML initiatives. The architect translates ambiguous business and mission requirements into clear, scalable technical designs; resolves complex cross-system data challenges; and mentors engineers and junior architects. The position includes defining data models and platform strategies, establishing integration and governance standards, enabling AI/ML and analytics, and communicating architectural decisions to technical and non-technical stakeholders. The position is preferred to be local to Vienna, Virginia, with on-site work at the Vienna office at least three days per week. Hybrid opportunities are available at supervisors’ discretion. The posted salary range is $150,000–$185,000 per year. Benefits may include health and life insurance, paid time off, paid holidays, disability coverage, retirement savings, and professional development opportunities; benefits vary by position and eligibility.

Requirements

Must be a U.S. citizen.
Bachelor’s degree or above in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Data Science, or a related field.
Must hold or be able to obtain a Public Trust clearance; an active Secret or Top Secret clearance also satisfies this requirement.
At least 6 years of experience in data architecture.
Strong experience with Python, SQL, Pandas, PySpark, and Git.
Experience with enterprise data warehousing and lake technologies such as Databricks, Redshift, BigQuery, or Snowflake.
Demonstrated ownership of enterprise-scale data architecture within cloud-based ecosystems.

Nice To Haves

Infrastructure-as-code and DevOps practices supporting data platform deployment.
Strong documentation and architecture communication skills, including diagramming tools and technical writing.
Familiarity with CI/CD as it relates to data platform and pipeline delivery.
Local to the Vienna, Virginia area and able to work on-site at the Vienna office at least three days per week.

Responsibilities

Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models for enterprise-scale systems.
Establish data modeling standards and best practices, including dimensional modeling, data vault, and star/snowflake schemas.
Apply master data management and enterprise data architecture patterns, balancing OLTP and OLAP workloads.
Select and architect cloud-native data platforms, including data lakes, data warehouses, and data mesh on AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Design multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud data strategies where appropriate.
Establish cost governance and performance standards for large-scale data workloads, and evaluate emerging data platform technologies.
Define integration patterns and standards for ETL/ELT pipelines across structured and unstructured sources, including batch and real-time integration.
Set standards for schema evolution, data versioning, and pipeline observability.
Establish enterprise data governance frameworks for data cataloging, lineage, and metadata management.
Design role-based access control and data protection architecture for sensitive healthcare and claims data, aligned with relevant compliance frameworks such as HIPAA and federal data-handling requirements.
Architect data platforms and pipelines for AI/ML and advanced analytics; partner with data science teams on feature stores and ML-ready infrastructure.
Evaluate architecture implications of emerging AI/ML tooling.
Lead technical design reviews and architecture review boards.
Mentor data engineers and junior architects on architectural best practices.
Translate business and mission requirements into technical roadmaps and communicate architectural decisions and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Work on-site at the Vienna, Virginia office at least three days per week when local; hybrid opportunities are at supervisors’ discretion.