Cloud Data Architect I

Duquesne Light Company - Pittsburgh, PA

Full-time - Senior

Hybrid - Pittsburgh, PA

Utilities

About the position

The role of Cloud Data Architect at Duquesne Light Company is pivotal in expanding the company's utilization of data as a strategic enabler of corporate goals and objectives. This position involves strategically designing, developing, and implementing data models for data stored in enterprise systems or curated from third parties, ensuring that business consumers have accessible and reliable data for analysis and insights. The Cloud Data Architect will serve as the primary advocate for data modeling best practices and will lead innovation in adopting and leveraging cloud data technologies to accelerate the company's data adoption. The role requires availability for overtime and on-call duties as necessary. In this position, the Cloud Data Architect will be responsible for developing and delivering long-term strategic goals for data architecture vision and standards in collaboration with data users, department managers, business partners, and other key stakeholders. The architect will create short-term tactical solutions to achieve these long-term objectives and will develop an overall data management roadmap. Collaboration with third parties and business subject matter experts is essential to enable the company's strategic imperatives that require secure and accessible cloud data capabilities. The architect will also work closely with IT Enterprise Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Engineering, and other stakeholders to ensure the accuracy and validity of corporate metadata, track data quality, and develop strategies for data security and compliance. Operationally, the Cloud Data Architect will develop and promote data management methodologies and standards, select and implement appropriate tools and systems to support data technology goals, and oversee the mapping of data sources and analytics to ensure data quality. The role also includes addressing data-related problems regarding systems integration and acting as a leader in data management, including coaching and training staff. The architect will document the data architecture and environment to maintain an accurate view of the data landscape and will identify opportunities for data reuse, migration, or retirement. This position requires a strong technical leadership presence in the organization, particularly in Data Architecture and Data Engineering best practices.

Responsibilities

• Develop and deliver long-term strategic goals for data architecture vision and standards with data users, department managers, business partners, and other key stakeholders.
• Create short-term tactical solutions to achieve long-term objectives and an overall data management roadmap.
• Collaborate with third parties and business subject matter experts to enable company strategic imperatives that require secure and accessible data cloud capabilities.
• Collaborate with IT Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Platforms, Business Intelligence, Data Engineering, Data Quality and Data Governance stakeholders to develop processes for governing the identification, collection, and use of corporate metadata.
• Take steps to assure metadata accuracy and validity.
• Track data quality, completeness, redundancy, and improvement.
• Conduct cloud consumption cost forecasting, usage requirements, proof of concepts, proof of business value, feasibility studies, and other tasks.
• Create strategies and plans for data security, backup, disaster recovery, business continuity, and archiving.
• Ensure that data strategies and architectures are in regulatory compliance.
• Liaise with vendors, cloud providers and service providers to select the solutions or services that best meet company goals.
• Develop and promote data management methodologies and standards.
• Select and implement the appropriate tools, software, applications, and systems to support data technology goals.
• Oversee the mapping of data sources, data movement, interfaces, and analytics, with the goal of ensuring data quality.
• Collaborate with scrum masters, project managers, and business unit leaders for all projects involving enterprise data.
• Address data-related problems in regard to systems integration, compatibility, and multiple-platform integration.
• Act as a leader and advocate of data management, including coaching, training, and career development to staff.
• Develop and implement key components as needed to create testing criteria to guarantee data architecture's fidelity and performance.
• Document the data architecture and environment to maintain a current and accurate view of the larger data picture.
• Identify and develop opportunities for data reuse, migration, or retirement.
• Act as a technical leader to the organization for Data Architecture and Data Engineering best practices.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, computer engineering, or relevant discipline.
• Twelve (12) or more years of experience is required.
• Advanced degrees in a related field preferred.
• Relevant professional certifications preferred.
• Utilities experience (oil, gas, and/or electric) strongly preferred.
• Five (5) or more years' work experience as a data or information architect.
• Hands-on experience with data architecting, data mining, large-scale data modeling, cloud data storage and analytics platforms.
• Experience with Azure, AWS or Google data capabilities.
• Experience with Databricks, Synapse, Foundry, Power BI, and/or Snowflake preferred.
• Experience with Enterprise platforms such as Oracle, Maximo etc preferred.
• Direct experience in implementing data solutions in the cloud.
• Strong understanding of relational data structures, theories, principles, and practices.
• Strong familiarity with metadata management and associated processes.
• Hands-on knowledge of enterprise repository tools, data modeling tools, data mapping tools, and data profiling tools.
• Demonstrated expertise with repository creation, and data and information system life cycle methodologies.
• Experience with business requirements analysis, entity relationship planning, database design, reporting structures, and so on.
• Ability to manage data and metadata migration.
• Experience with database platforms, including Oracle RDBMS.
• Experience with GIS Geo-Spatial Data, time-phased PI Historian or collector data preferred.
• Understanding of Web services (SOAP, XML, UDDI, WSDL).
• Object-oriented programming experience (e.g. using Java, J2EE, EJB, .NET, WebSphere, etc.).
• Excellent client/user interaction skills to determine requirements.
• Proven project management experience.
• Good knowledge of applicable data privacy practices and laws.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with cloud data technologies and architectures.
• Familiarity with data governance frameworks and best practices.
• Knowledge of data visualization tools and techniques.

Benefits

• Hybrid work environment (two days per week in office).
• Commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
• Opportunities for professional development and training.
• Support for reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.