Data Architect / Engineering Lead

Data Architect / Data Engineering Lead
Data & Analytics | Hybrid, Northern Chicago Suburbs | Full-Time

Department: IT / Data & Analytics
Location: Hybrid, three days onsite, northern Chicago suburbs
Level: Senior, 7+ years in data engineering, database development, or data architecture
Type: Full-time

About the Opportunity

Hirewell is partnering with a growing, established distribution company in the northern Chicago suburbs to hire a Data Architect / Data Engineering Lead. This is the dedicated owner of the company’s data foundation. Roughly one third of the role is architecture and two thirds is hands-on engineering, so you’ll design the models and build the pipelines. You’ll deliver trusted, well-modeled data that powers reporting, self-service analytics, and data science. The company builds much of its technology in-house, which gives you real influence over tools, standards, and approach.

What You’ll Do

• Design and maintain the enterprise data architecture, including how data moves between operational systems, the cloud data warehouse, and downstream consumers
• Design conceptual, logical, and physical data models, including dimensional models that support reporting and analytics
• Build, maintain, and monitor ETL/ELT pipelines that bring data from relational databases, NoSQL document stores, and cloud SaaS applications into the warehouse
• Identify and resolve database and pipeline performance issues, including query tuning, indexing, warehouse sizing, and cost optimization
• Establish data quality checks, monitoring, and alerting so data is accurate, complete, and timely
• Define and enforce data standards and naming conventions, and maintain a data dictionary and data lineage
• Implement data security and access controls, including role-based access, data masking, and protection of sensitive and regulated data
• Partner with the reporting team to deliver curated, certified datasets for self-service dashboards
• Partner with data science to provide clean, well-structured data for analysis and modeling
• Work with business analysts, architects, and developers to define data requirements for new projects and system changes
• Evaluate and recommend data tools, platforms, and integration approaches
• Cover some database administration work, since there is no dedicated DBA on the team
• Resolve support cases related to data, integrations, and pipelines

What You’ll Bring

• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, database development, or data architecture
• Proven experience designing data models, including dimensional, relational, and NoSQL document models
• Hands-on experience with Snowflake, including data loading, modeling, performance tuning, and cost management
• Strong experience with MS SQL Server development and administration
• Experience with NoSQL document databases such as Azure Cosmos DB or similar
• Demonstrated experience building and supporting production ETL/ELT pipelines
• Experience integrating data from cloud SaaS applications through APIs and connectors
• A strong ability to diagnose and resolve performance issues across databases and pipelines
• Advanced SQL and T-SQL
• Experience with ELT/ETL tools such as Fivetran, Matillion, Azure Data Factory, or Airbyte
• dbt and Python, plus working knowledge of REST APIs and JSON
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience
• A collaborative approach, comfortable both designing new systems and improving existing ones, and able to prioritize multiple projects in a fast-paced environment

Nice to Have

• Snowflake SnowPro or a Microsoft Azure data certification
• Experience leading a migration from legacy reporting databases to a cloud data warehouse
• Experience with data governance frameworks and master data management
• Git and CI/CD for data pipelines
• Exposure to supply chain, logistics, or regulated-industry data