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Steampunk, Inc. · 16 hours ago

Lead Data Architect

McLean, VA

Full-time

Onsite

Lead/Staff

$165K/yr - $210K/yr

10+ years exp

Steampunk, Inc. is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, and they are seeking a Principal Data Solution Architect / Lead Data Architect to serve as the senior-most technical authority for end-to-end data architectures and cloud data platforms. This role involves driving architectural strategy across data platforms and guiding engineering teams toward scalable, secure, and maintainable solutions.

ConsultingInformation Technology

Growth Opportunities

No H1B

Security Clearance Required

U.S. Citizen Only

Responsibilities

Serve as the chief architect for data platform modernization, designing enterprise data ecosystems including lakehouse architectures, data mesh/fabric patterns, domain modeling, and multi-cloud data strategies

Translate mission and business needs into actionable data architecture roadmaps, reference architectures, and solution blueprints

Architect robust ingestion, transformation, and serving layers using a blend of batch, streaming, CDC, API-based, and event-driven patterns

Lead end-to-end data modeling strategy, including canonical data models, semantic layers, MDM architectures, metadata systems, and AI/ML-aligned feature modeling

Partner with Data Engineering, Data Science, AI/ML Engineering, and LLMOps / MLOps teams to ensure data platforms support analytics, ML, RAG systems, and advanced automation use cases

Define and enforce enterprise data standards: schema evolution, data contracts, quality frameworks, lineage expectations, observability, data zones, and Zero Trust data-access policies

Drive platform engineering decisions including storage optimization, cluster sizing, compute orchestration, network design, and cost-performance tradeoffs

Guide selection and adoption of platform technologies such as Databricks, Snowflake, Redshift, Synapse, BigQuery, lakehouse engines, metadata platforms, and orchestration tools

Oversee architectural governance, including design reviews, performance evaluations, cloud readiness assessments, and alignment with enterprise cybersecurity and compliance requirements

Serve as a senior advisor to client executives, framing modernization strategies, defining investment pathways, and articulating value realization for enterprise data initiatives

Mentor Data Engineers, Data Architects, and cross-functional technical staff, strengthening architectural maturity across programs

Develop reusable frameworks, architectural patterns, playbooks, and internal accelerators that improve consistency and reduce delivery time across engagements

Stay current with emerging trends in cloud-native data ecosystems, metadata automation, distributed compute, AI-ready data architectures, and federal data regulations

You will contribute to the growth of our AI & Data Exploitation Practice!

Qualification

Data ArchitectureCloud Data PlatformsData GovernanceData EngineeringAI/ML IntegrationSQLPythonDistributed Data ProcessingCloud ServicesArchitectural GovernanceMentoringCommunication Skills

Required

Ability to hold a position of public trust or higher clearance as required

Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Cloud Architecture, or a related technical field

10+ years of professional experience designing enterprise-scale data solutions, with significant architectural leadership

Expert-level knowledge of modern data architectures including lakehouse, data mesh, data fabric, MDM, event-driven architectures, and domain-driven design

Deep experience with cloud-native data ecosystems across AWS, Azure, or GCP—including storage, compute, orchestration, serverless, virtualization, containerization, and security services

Mastery of distributed data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Databricks, Flink, Kafka, Synapse, Dataflow) and strong proficiency in SQL and Python

Proven ability to design end-to-end ingestion pipelines, transformation logic, metadata systems, feature stores, and data serving layers optimized for analytics and AI workloads

Understanding of enterprise data governance, including cataloging, lineage, privacy, tagging, Zero Trust access patterns, and compliance requirements

Strong communication skills with the ability to influence senior stakeholders, justify architectural decisions, and translate complex concepts into actionable insights

Demonstrated success mentoring technical staff, leading architecture reviews, and guiding multi-team delivery across complex modernization programs

Experience collaborating with Data Science, AI/ML, and MLOps teams to ensure data architectures support scalable model development and operationalization

Preferred

AWS Data Analytics Specialty

AWS Solutions Architect – Professional

Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Databricks Data Engineer Professional

Google Professional Data Engineer

Snowflake SnowPro Advanced Architect

TOGAF or cloud architecture frameworks

Local to Washington, DC metro area

Company

Steampunk, Inc.

Glassdoor4.4

Steampunk is anchored by a startup culture with a customer-centered delivery approach, we put our Federal government clients in the center of everything we design, develop, and deliver to drive high-quality mission impacts and user experiences at speed.

Founded in 2019

Washington, District of Columbia, USA

201-500 employees