[Hiring] Principal Databricks Architect @MetaPhase Consulting

Role Description

The Principal Databricks Architect / Engineer will provide technical leadership for the architecture, design, implementation, governance, and sustainment of a Databricks-based data and analytics environment. This role serves as the senior technical authority for the platform, translating mission and business needs into secure, scalable, maintainable, and cost-effective data solutions. The Principal Databricks Architect / Engineer will establish technical standards, advise and guide engineers through complex implementation decisions, and implement Databricks architectural best practices so the environment is operated in accordance with data governance, security, reliability, and performance requirements as well as agency IT and security policies.

What You Will Be Doing

• Lead the target architecture and technical roadmap for the Databricks platform, including data ingestion, storage, transformation, orchestration, analytics, sharing, and consumption patterns.
• Design and govern scalable Lakehouse architectures using Databricks capabilities such as Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Databricks SQL, Lakeflow Jobs, Auto Loader, and Apache Spark.
• Define and maintain platform standards for data modeling, medallion architecture, pipeline design, code quality, environment promotion, CI/CD, testing, documentation, observability, and incident response.
• Lead the design and implementation of enterprise data governance, including cataloging, access controls, data classification, lineage, auditability, retention, data quality, and stewardship processes.
• Architect secure integrations between Databricks and source systems, cloud services, enterprise applications, APIs, data warehouses, and reporting or visualization tools.
• Provide technical leadership and hands-on engineering support for complex data pipelines, batch and streaming workloads, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and releases.
• Review technical designs, code, and deployment artifacts; mentor engineers; and elevate team capability through reusable patterns, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
• Support architecture reviews, technical demonstrations, operational reporting, backlog refinement, and continuous improvement activities.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical discipline and 8+ years of progressive experience designing, building, and operating cloud data, analytics, or enterprise data platforms.
• 5+ years of hands-on data engineering experience using Python, SQL, Apache Spark, and production ETL/ELT pipelines, including testing, deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• 3+ years of hands-on Databricks architecture and engineering experience, such as Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, workflow orchestration, performance tuning, and production support.
• Current Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional certification required.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical architecture, establish engineering and governance standards, and communicate solution decisions to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Ability to obtain a U.S. Public Trust suitability determination.
• U.S. Citizenship Required.

Bonus Points (Desired)

• Experience implementing enterprise data governance and security controls, including role-based access, metadata, lineage, auditability, data-quality management, and sensitive-data protection.
• Experience with Databricks Asset Bundles, Databricks CLI or APIs, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD, and automated environment promotion.
• Experience architecting data integrations across cloud services, enterprise systems, APIs, analytics platforms, and batch or streaming data sources.
• Relevant AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud architect or data-engineering certification; additional advanced Databricks certification is a plus.
• Experience supporting regulated, public-sector, or security-sensitive environments and leading technical teams using Agile methodologies.
• Additional Databricks certifications (e.g., Databricks Machine Learning Engineer Associate or Professional, Databricks Generative AI Engineer Associate).

Work Location

Remote (travel 5%)

Clearance Requirements

Must be able to obtain a U.S. Public Trust suitability determination. U.S. Citizenship Required.

Benefits

• Generous PTO
• Federal holidays
• Parental leave
• Comprehensive health coverage (medical, dental, vision, life, and disability)
• 401(k) with company match
• FSA/HSA options
• Commuter benefits
• Much more