Director, Data Architecture – Engineering

3Cloud

Director of Data Architecture & Engineering leading data solutions and Azure program teams at 3Cloud. Aligning business goals with cloud modernization roadmaps and technical direction across teams.

Posted 7/2/2026full-timeRemote • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $162,800 - $244,200 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

AzureCloudSparkUnity

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Maintain a clear view of each team member's delivery commitments, growth plans, and internal contributions.
Develop and grow team members through regular coaching, clear expectations, and constructive feedback. Build a culture of trust, inclusion, and collaboration.
Monitor team health, morale, and workload balance, acting early to address engagement or performance concerns in partnership with practice leadership.
Maintain regular one-to-one connections with each team member, provide clear feedback, and help them remove blockers related to client work, pursuits, or internal initiatives.
Oversee staffing and resource alignment across teams, balancing utilization, development goals, client needs, and sustainable workloads.
Communicate practice priorities and organizational objectives clearly, ensuring teams understand how their work contributes to broader organizational goals.
Define interview standards and mentorship strategies, training others to apply them consistently and improving hiring outcomes and talent growth at scale.
Create and maintain development plans for team members, including stretch assignments, shadowing, certifications, and opportunities for external visibility.
Lead or support performance reviews, promotion recommendations, and compensation input for your teams, using consistent standards that reflect both impact and behavior.
Represent your teams in leadership forums, communicate expectations and decisions clearly back to the group, and bring forward patterns, risks, and successes that should shape practice strategy.
Lead architecture and technical strategy for large Azure programs and portfolios so solutions meet client goals for value, security, scalability, reliability, performance, and cost.
Define modernization blueprints and reference architectures across applications, platforms, and data, including system and subsystem designs, patterns, and standards that simplify delivery and operations over time.
Translate business and product strategy into cloud architecture roadmaps and execution plans that drive measurable outcomes and adapt based on production feedback and telemetry.
Guide major architecture decisions across programs, promote shared design standards and reusable models, and resolve high-impact technical trade-offs.
Work across teams to connect solutions into cohesive end-to-end architectures with clear ownership boundaries and integration contracts.
Provide architectural oversight during delivery through design reviews, forums, and governance, keeping cross-cutting concerns (security, performance, resilience, availability, compliance, observability, and cost) aligned across teams.
Promote modular design, clear boundaries, testability, CI/CD, and observability so non-functional requirements are treated as first-class and systems remain reliable and maintainable.
Use AI tools to accelerate discovery, design, code, tests, documentation, and analysis, and scale successful practices so teams adopt them consistently.
Define and own enterprise data platform strategy centered on Databricks or equivalent lakehouse architectures.
Establish reference architectures spanning ingestion, lakehouse, analytics, and AI/ML.
Set standards and best practices for: Databricks lakehouse design and workload isolation. Delta Lake optimization and data lifecycle management. Streaming and batch processing patterns. Unity Catalog–aligned governance and security models. Guide multi-workspace and multi-region Databricks deployments.
Ensure tight integration between Databricks, Azure-native services, and downstream analytics tools.
Oversee architectural alignment with complementary platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Fabric, Power BI).

Requirements

What you’ll need

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field preferred
12+ years of experience delivering solutions in a primary domain such as application development, cloud platform engineering, DevOps, or data and analytics, including significant work at enterprise scale.
7+ years of experience in solution architecture and leading development or engineering teams, including multi-team or multi-workstream efforts at program scale.
10+ years of experience in data platforms, data engineering, or consulting.
Deep architectural expertise with Databricks, including Spark optimization, Delta Lake, and workload design.
Strong understanding of Azure-native data services and cloud architecture.
Proven experience in architecting and implementing solutions using Microsoft technologies.
Proven experience leading architecture and delivery for Azure-based modernization, transformation, AI, or platform programs at enterprise scale.
Experience defining solution and platform architectures that connect business strategy with scalable technical design, strong delivery practices, and measurable outcomes.
Experience leading hybrid and remote teams and working with multiple stakeholders across time zones while maintaining alignment, quality, and predictable delivery.
Deep understanding of core concepts, languages, frameworks, and design patterns in a primary domain, with the ability to apply them at system and program scale.
Experience designing and integrating quality, automation, and observability practices at scale, including automated testing strategies and embedding quality checks into delivery workflows.
Experience using AI-augmented development and integrating AI and machine learning capabilities into solutions (for example, using APIs, frameworks, or cloud-based AI services and tools for code, test, and documentation acceleration).
Significant experience working in Agile or Scrum environments at scale, including backlog structuring, dependency management, integration planning, and release management.
Proven success in consulting or professional services, including client-facing leadership and executive engagement.
Familiarity with key Azure services used in modern solutions that are relevant to your domain (for example, messaging, compute, data, security, networking, management, and integration services).
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with strong presentation, written, and verbal communication skills for both technical and business audiences.
Commitment to continuous learning in cloud, data, and AI, with the ability to turn that learning into practical improvements for teams and clients.
Ability to foster culture, inclusion, and community participation across the organization in ways that support rapid cross-team collaboration.
Relevant cloud architecture certifications (for example, Azure-focused architect certifications or comparable role-based certifications) are strongly preferred.
Experience with multiple cloud vendors and complementary platforms such as Snowflake, Microsoft Fabric, and Power BI.
Experience creating data platform offerings.
Relevant certifications (Databricks Champion, Databricks Professional level, Azure Solutions Architect Expert.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Flexible work location with a virtual first approach to work!
401(K) with match up to 50% of your 6% contributions of eligible pay
Generous PTO providing a minimum of 15 days in addition to 9 paid company holidays and 2 floating personal days
Two medical plan options to allow you the choice to elect what works best for you!
Option for vision and dental coverage
100% employer paid coverage for life and disability insurance
Paid leave for birth parents and non-birth parents
Option for Healthcare FSA, HSA, and Dependent Care FSA
$67.00 monthly tech and home office allowance
Utilization and/or discretionary bonus eligibility based on role
Employee Assistance Program to help with everyday challenges

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

DatabricksDelta LakeSpark OptimizationCloud ArchitectureData PlatformsAI IntegrationAutomation StrategiesSystem Design PatternsPerformance OptimizationQuality Assurance

Soft Skills

CoachingCommunicationProblem-SolvingTeam LeadershipCollaboration

Certifications

Azure Solutions Architect ExpertDatabricks ChampionDatabricks Professional Level