The Opportunity

We are looking for a Lead Data Architect to spearhead a critical architectural transformation. Our current application is entering a new phase of maturity, and we are moving away from legacy constraints toward a high-performance, scalable ecosystem built on Snowflake and AWS.

This is not just a "maintenance" role. You will be one of the primary architects responsible for refactoring our data layer, establishing new orchestration patterns with Dagster, and ensuring our infrastructure is containerized and resilient via Amazon ECS. Beyond the initial transformation, you will act as the technical "North Star" for the product, guiding its evolution and mentoring the engineering team as we scale.

Key Responsibilities1. The Transformation (Initial Phase)

• Architectural Refactoring: Lead the migration and refactoring of existing data models and logic from legacy systems into a optimized Snowflake environment.
• Orchestration Design: Replace rigid scheduling with a modern, asset-based orchestration framework using Dagster to ensure data observability and lineage.
• Containerization & Deployment: Work closely with DevOps to deploy Python-based data services and ETL/ELT processes on Amazon ECS, ensuring efficient resource utilization and scaling.
• Performance Tuning: Implement best practices within Snowflake (clustering, search optimization, materialized views) to ensure the new application outperforms its predecessor.

2. Strategic Growth (Ongoing)

• Product Vision: Partner with product stakeholders to translate business requirements into technical roadmaps that leverage the full power of the cloud-native stack.
• Governance & Security: Establish data governance standards, including RBAC in Snowflake and secure secret management within AWS.
• Mentorship: Act as a technical lead, conducting code reviews and providing architectural guidance to Python developers and data engineers.
• Innovation: Continuously evaluate new features within the Snowflake and AWS ecosystems to improve product efficiency and lower operational overhead.

Technical Requirements

• Snowflake Mastery: Deep experience in Snowflake architecture (Virtual Warehouses, Snowpipe, Time Travel, Zero-copy Cloning) and advanced SQL.
• Modern Orchestration: Proven experience with Dagster (preferred) or similar tools (Airflow/Prefect), with a focus on building maintainable, testable pipelines.
• Python Expertise: Strong software engineering fundamentals in Python, specifically for data processing and API integration.
• AWS Infrastructure: Hands-on experience with the AWS ecosystem, specifically Amazon ECS (Fargate/EC2) for running containerized applications.
• Data Modeling: Expert knowledge of dimensional modeling, Data Vault, or other modern data modeling methodologies suited for cloud data warehouses.

Soft Skills & Leadership

• Impact-Driven: You don’t just build features; you build solutions that solve business problems.
• Communicator: Ability to explain complex architectural decisions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Growth Mindset: You stay ahead of industry trends and are eager to implement "best-in-class" technology rather than settling for "good enough."

Why This Role Matters

The work you do in the first six months will define the technical trajectory of this product for the next five years. You will have the autonomy to make high-level design decisions and the support to execute them using a premier tech stack. As the product grows, your role will evolve from an architect of code to an architect of strategy, shaping how we use data to drive value.

This is a 6-month contract-to-hire.

You must be able to pass a criminal background check as well as a drug test.

Job Types: Full-time, Contract

Pay: $75.00 - $90.00 per hour

Benefits:

• 401(k)

Application Question(s):

• I confirm that I don't require sponsorship now, or will EVER require sponsorship, to work in the US. Please answer Yes, if that is true.
• Please note that if you do not answer the first question above, your resume will not be reviewed and will immediately be rejected. Thank you.

Work Location: Remote