CARMAX - DATA ARCHITECT (Azure/Snowflake) - RICHMOND PERFERRED- 75/hr.
on W2 pay Local to Richmond VA | onsite 1-2 times a quarter on site, or 2 days in a week -
- Very technical and tactical.
Not strategic, can't have a business conversation with stakeholders
- Highly technical, tactical, strategic and can talk with stakeholders - CAF
- Need to help impact
- Level of Director or AVP // working and communicating with and executive
- Ideally in person- Richmond or ATL (CAF is in ATL) Dallas is out // one week a quarter on site, or 2 days in a week
- Snowflake is a huge requirement -- recent
- Less so is the cloud environment
- Azure Data Factory is huge to have that -
- Main platform and ecosystem is Snowflake-- good experience in snowflake
Prefer my architects to be hands on, 70% execution, 30% strategic -- maybe even 60/40 but have to be able to develop, prototype, provide the first foundational component.
Bring up intentional thought leadership on how the data modeling is doing.
Theres a journey there
Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) Design & Modeling
- Architect, develop, and optimize data warehouse solutions in Snowflake for large-scale enterprise applications.
- Design and implement dimensional and relational data models, ensuring scalability, efficiency, and maintainability.
- Define best practices for schema design, partitioning, clustering, and indexing in Snowflake.
- Develop ETL/ELT pipelines in collaboration with data engineers to streamline data ingestion and transformation processes.
Ontology and Taxonomy Development
- Define and implement ontology frameworks to establish relationships between data entities.
- Develop and manage data taxonomies to standardize data classification and metadata organization.
- Collaborate with business stakeholders to create a semantic layerthat improves data discoverability and usability.
- Ensure alignment with industry standards (e.g., FIBO, CDISC, (url removed)) for data classification.
Metadata Management & Data Governance
- Implement data cataloging solutions to enhance metadata documentation and lineage tracking.
- Define data governance policies, including data security, access controls, and compliance.
- Work closely with data stewards, analysts, and engineers to ensure consistent data definitions and quality across the organization.
- Establish automated workflows for data classification, tagging, and access provisioning.
Performance Optimization & Best Practices
- Optimize Snowflake compute and storage costs through clustering strategies, caching, and workload management.
- Implement monitoring tools to track query performance, storage consumption, and concurrency.
- Advocate for CI/CD practices, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and automation in Snowflake deployments.
Required Qualifications:
- 15+ years of experience in data architecture, data modeling, and data governance.
- 5+ years of hands-on experience designing and implementing Snowflake-based data solutions.
- Strong expertise in dimensional modeling (Kimball/Inmon).
- Proven experience in ontology and taxonomy design, preferably in enterprise environments.
- Proficiency in SQL, Python, and dbt (Data Build Tool) for data modeling and transformations.
- Experience with metadata management tools (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Atlan) and data catalogs.
- Knowledge of cloud-based architectures (Azure) and integration with Snowflake.
- Understanding of data privacy, security frameworks (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA), and access controls.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to communicate complex technical concepts to business users.