Data Architect?

Data architects are senior visionaries who translate business requirements into technical requirements and define data standards and principles. The data architect is responsible for visualizing and designing an organization's enterprise data management framework. This framework describes the processes used to plan, specify, enable, create, acquire, maintain, use, archive, retrieve, control, and purge data. The data architect also "provides a standard common business vocabulary, expresses strategic requirements, outlines high-level integrated designs to meet those requirements, and aligns with enterprise strategy and related business architecture," 

Data Architects are often involved in creating and executing an organization’s overall data strategy and setting enterprise-wide quality metrics. Here are several ways to measure and evaluate the success of a data solution.

Data architect responsibilities

• Translating business requirements into technical specifications, including data streams, integrations, transformations, databases, and data warehouses
• Defining the data architecture framework, standards, and principles, including modeling, metadata, security, reference data such as product codes and client categories, and master data such as clients, vendors, materials, and employees
• Defining reference architecture, which is a pattern that others can follow to create and improve data systems
• Defining data flows, i.e., which parts of the organization generate data, which require data to function, how data flows are managed, and how data changes in the transition
• Collaborating and coordinating with multiple departments, stakeholders, partners, and external vendors

Data architect skills

According to Bob Lambert, analytics delivery lead at Anthem and former director of CapTech Consulting, important data architect skills include:

• A foundation in systems development. Data architects must understand the system development life cycle, project management approaches, and requirements, design, and test techniques, Lambert says.
• Data modeling and design. This is the core skill of the data architect and the most requested skill in data architect job descriptions, according to Lambert, who notes that this often includes SQL development and database administration.
• Established and emerging data technologies. Data architects need to understand established data management and reporting technologies and have some knowledge of columnar and NoSQL databases, predictive analytics, data visualization, and unstructured data.
• Communication and political savvy. Data architects need people skills. They must be articulate, persuasive, and good salespeople, Lambert says, and they must conceive and portray the big data picture to others.

Data architect salary

According to data from Robert Half's 2020 Technology and IT Salary Guide, the average salary for data architects in the US, based on experience, breaks down as follows:

5th percentile: $119,750

50th percentile: $141,250

75th percentile: $163,500

95th percentile: $193,500

Data architect jobs

A recent search for data architect jobs on Indeed.com showed positions available in a range of industries, including financial services, consulting, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, and higher education.

A sampling of data architect job descriptions shows key areas of responsibility such as: creating a data ops and BI transformation roadmap, developing and sustaining a data strategy, implementing and optimizing physical database design, and designing and implementing data migration and integration processes.

Work closely with teams to collect and translate information requirements into data to develop data-centric solutions

Ensure that industry-accepted data architecture principles and standards are integrated and followed for modeling, stored procedures, replication, regulations, and security, among other concepts, to meet technical and business goals

Continuously improve the quality, consistency, accessibility, and security of our data activity across the company needs