Data Architect

Position: Data Architect

Reports to: Director, Data Intelligence

Position Term: Full Time Permanent

Primary Location: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Workplace Type: Remote (Within Canada)

Job Purpose

The Data Architect is responsible for the design, governance and integrity of World Vision Canada's data architecture. The role defines how data is structured, stored, integrated and made available for reporting, analytics and artificial intelligence, and translates business information requirements into a well-governed and reusable data foundation. It ensures that data is managed as an enterprise asset that is consistent across systems, reliable for decision-making, and able to support the organization as its technology environment changes, thereby supporting the organization's mission.

Reporting to the Director, Data Intelligence, the incumbent develops the organization's data architecture framework and principles for the Director's approval and is thereafter accountable for their application across the enterprise. The incumbent owns the data architecture for the multi-year transformation program and sets the multi-year direction and roadmap for the organization's data architecture and platform. Support for day-to-day operations is provided on an as-available basis and is ad-hoc in nature. This is a hands-on role, with results achieved through modernizing data flows, publishing standards, documentation and design reviews.

Responsibilities

• Designs the enterprise data architecture. Develops the conceptual, logical and physical data architecture, including the data platform, canonical data models, and the standards that govern how data is structured, stored and moved. Establishes the framework and principles that govern this work and holds all designs, internal and vendor, to them.
• Develops and presents the data architecture for senior leadership approval. Prepares and presents the data architecture, its roadmap and material design decisions to senior leadership for approval, frames the options and the trade-offs between them, and sets the multi-year direction for the organization's data architecture and platform.
• Defines data integration and interoperability standards. Establishes the contract-first patterns, interfaces and reusable standards by which systems exchange data, including schema and interface contracts defined in advance of build. This includes the standards for secure data-sharing with federated partner organizations across the wider World Vision partnership, distinct from the organization's own enterprise data governance which the role helps uphold. Sets the data architecture requirements that solution designs must satisfy, rules on data design questions arising within solution architecture, and confirms that individual solutions stay coherent with the wider data architecture.
• Architects governed, reusable data products. Designs trustworthy, well-defined data products and master data structures, including consolidated master records and analytical models, that support reporting, analytics and machine learning. Ensures these are documented, discoverable and reusable across business areas rather than rebuilt for each initiative.
• Establishes data quality, master data and lifecycle standards. Defines the controls for data quality, master data management, retention and remediation, and requires delivery teams to apply them in day-to-day practice. Sets quality and design standards at a level sufficient for data to be consumed reliably by analytics and artificial intelligence, including requirements for completeness, consistency, labelling and documented meaning. Monitors adherence, directs the remediation of data quality and data definition issues at source, and withholds acceptance where the controls are not met.
• Sets standards for AI and machine learning data use and platform portability. Defines how analytical and machine learning workloads consume governed data, and designs for platform portability so that the organization avoids undue dependence on any single vendor or platform.
• Establishes data security and protection standards. Defines how data is classified, protected and accessed, with particular attention to sensitive information and to data relating to donors, employees, and vulnerable populations, including children participating in the organization's programs. Ensures protection, privacy and access controls are included in designs from the outset, and that designs meet or exceed regulatory and organizational obligations.
• Produces and maintains architecture documentation. Produces and maintains data architecture documentation, including conceptual, logical and physical data models, current and target state reference architectures, data flow and integration diagrams, architecture decision records and standards documentation. Maintains these as the reference used by delivery teams and as the record of architecture governance.
• Governs solution and vendor designs through to delivery. Reviews solution and vendor designs against data architecture standards, prepares and reviews architecture decision records, and confirms alignment before designs proceed. Guides delivery teams through implementation, holds delivered systems to the architecture, and adjusts the architecture where implementation shows it to be wrong.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Enterprise-architecture or cloud data-platform certification, for example TOGAF or a recognized cloud data credential. Preferred.

Experience

• Ten or more years working in data management disciplines such as data modelling, data engineering or data science.
• Five or more years in data architecture, including the design of lakehouse or warehouse-native patterns and of batch and streaming data flows in Snowflake and other cloud data platforms.
• Demonstrated accountability for an enterprise data architecture, including setting standards adopted across delivery teams and vendors, and presenting architecture direction to senior leadership for approval.
• Demonstrated delivery of master-data and golden-record solutions, and of governed, reusable data products, as well as warehouse-native customer data platforms.
• Demonstrated experience setting data design direction for solution architects and delivery partners within an established technology or architecture function.
• Experience designing data protection, classification and access controls for sensitive data.
• Experience in a nonprofit or mission-driven organization. Preferred.

Technical skills

• Defining data and application-programming-interface contracts in advance of build, including the use of schema registries and contract testing.
• Advanced data modelling across conceptual, logical and physical layers, relational and dimensional, and strong SQL.
• Familiarity with modern transformation frameworks, for example dbt, ELT patterns, and orchestration tooling, sufficient to define standards and review implementations.
• Familiarity with Python or similar scripting languages for prototyping and automation.
• Understanding of continuous integration and delivery and automated testing practices for data, including contract and schema testing, sufficient to embed them in standards and review vendor delivery against them.
• Command of modern data architecture paradigms, including data mesh, data fabric and lakehouse, sufficient to select between them and defend the choice.
• Familiarity with data catalog and metadata management tooling.
• Proficiency with architecture modelling notations and tooling for producing models and diagrams, for example ArchiMate or UML.
• Experience working in environments using Enterprise Agile frameworks.

Soft skills and competencies

• Communicates clearly with both technical specialists and non-technical stakeholders.
• Builds agreement on design direction across technical and business teams.
• Applies sound judgement to complex and ambiguous design problems, balancing long-term architectural integrity against near-term delivery needs.
• Records design decisions, applies standards consistently, and supports recommendations with evidence.

Why Consider Us?

• Our competitive compensation & benefits include:
• Health Spending Account
• Up to 6% matched pension contributions
• Parental leave top-up
• Generous paid vacation, sick days, wellness and personal days
• Office closed extra days before long weekends (6x/year)

• World Vision Canada has consistently been awarded Canada and GTA top employer awards.
• We are Canada’s largest development, relief, and advocacy non-profit organization.
• We embody an Agile mindset here.

This isacurrentvacancy that we are actively recruiting for. The salary rangerepresentsthe expected compensation for this role and is providedin accordance withOntario’s pay transparency requirements under the Employment Standards Act.

Placement within the range will bedeterminedbased onrelevant skills, experience, qualifications, and internal equity. The final offer will reflect the successful candidate’s background anddemonstratedcapabilities.

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