Data Architect

Black Canyon Consulting · Bethesda

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Overview

We are seeking a Data Architect to lead the data architecture for a federal modernization initiative supporting permitting and natural resource management systems.

The Data Architect will define and guide implementation of a modern AWS lakehouse that consolidates structured, document, geospatial, and event-driven data from multiple source systems into a governed canonical model. The role will establish architectural patterns for metadata-driven and agentic data engineering, data quality, document processing, GIS integration, and governed data products.

The environment includes Amazon S3, Apache Iceberg, AWS Glue Catalog, DuckDB, Kafka/Amazon MSK, OpenSearch, GeoParquet, and PostGIS.

This position is remote with periodic travel as required.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary architecture authority for the data workstream.
• Define the end-to-end data architecture spanning ingestion, bronze/silver/gold processing, document pipelines, GIS processing, analytical data products, and downstream services.
• Design the lakehouse architecture using Amazon S3, Apache Iceberg, AWS Glue Catalog, and DuckDB.
• Define reusable patterns for batch, API, file, database, CDC, and event-driven ingestion.
• Establish a metadata-driven architecture that supports configuration-based source onboarding and source-to-canonical mappings.
• Define and govern the common canonical data model used to harmonize information across source systems.
• Establish data contracts and standards for lineage, provenance, reconciliation, schema evolution, auditability, and data quality.
• Define architecture patterns for agentic solutions supporting source analysis, mapping, pipeline generation, testing, reconciliation, and quality assurance.
• Establish controls for agentic workflows, including validation, observability, security, deterministic execution, and human review where required.
• Coordinate architecture across structured data, OCR/document processing, vector search, and geospatial data.
• Provide architectural direction and design review across the data engineering, data science, GIS, and content pipeline teams.
• Work with Government stakeholders and technical teams to translate business and domain requirements into scalable data models and services.
• Maintain architecture standards, technical decisions, interface specifications, and implementation guidance.
• Support technical handoff and knowledge transfer to Government and operations teams.

Educational Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or software engineering, including leadership of modern data platform initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience designing cloud-based data lakehouse or analytical platforms.
• Hands-on experience with DuckDB, Apache Iceberg, SQL, Python, and AWS data services including Amazon S3 and AWS Glue.
• Experience designing medallion-style architectures, canonical data models, and metadata-driven ingestion and transformation frameworks.
• Experience integrating databases, APIs, files, streaming/event sources, and enterprise SaaS applications.
• Experience architecting or implementing agentic or AI-enabled solutions, including orchestration, tool integration, validation, observability, security, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Strong understanding of data contracts, schema evolution, lineage, provenance, reconciliation, and data quality.
• Experience providing architectural leadership to multidisciplinary technical teams and translating business requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Bonus Skills

• Experience with Kafka or Amazon MSK and CDC architectures.
• Experience with OpenSearch, vector databases, embeddings, or document retrieval systems.
• Experience with agentic frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or similar orchestration frameworks.
• Experience designing geospatial data architectures using GeoParquet and PostGIS.
• Experience with Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft Dataverse, or similar enterprise platforms.
• Experience working in the U.S. Federal Government space.
• Experience with permitting, land management, environmental, energy, or natural-resource datasets.

Benefits and Salary

We attract the best people in the business with our competitive benefits package that includes medical, dental and vision coverage, 401k plan with employer contribution, paid holidays, vacation, and tuition reimbursement.

If you enjoy being a part of a high performing, professional service and technology focused organization, please apply today!

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