Principal Data Architect

The Infected Blood Compensation Authority (IBCA) is responsible for delivering a compensation scheme that has been long awaited by the infected blood community to provide financial compensation to victims of infected blood on a UK-wide basis.

This role will lead our data platform architecture and modelling team within the Data Operations arm of the IBCA Data Directorate.

The Data Operations team is responsible for developing and running safe and secure data solutions that provide a single source of truth for those going through their compensation journey. They are designing and building a new data platform using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and data management and intelligence products using Databricks and Quantexa.

We are taking a product-centric approach treating data as a product and are building squads around our products, with a focus on paying compensation to those impacted by the infected blood scandal seamlessly.

You will focus on designing scalable and flexible data solutions for data management processes (including data integration and master data management), ensuring data quality, and driving a culture of problem statement driven design.

Working at IBCA gives you a huge opportunity to make an impact on those who deserve compensation, and this role suits a candidate who can spearhead solutions from the ground up to take from ideation to reality so that data is an enabler to everything IBCA does.

Job description

As the Principal Data Architect for our data platform and products, you’ll be critical to delivering data architecture and modelling capabilities. You will mature the quality of our data architecture practices and should be committed to delivering high-impact, secure data solutions to achieve IBCA’s objectives.

This post is within a data delivery setting, especially one focused on AWS, Quantexa and Databricks.

You will:

• set the direction for data architecture and infrastructure and provide technical guidance for the development of designs for the data platform including integration and master data management encompassing secure by design principles
• ensure designs are scalable, secure and efficient
• lead efforts to integrate data from various sources of varying fidelity, ensuring data consistency, accuracy, and quality, and support the development and maintenance of these processes
• be responsible for the design and implementation of logical and physical data models, and the development of data standards and data management policies
• be responsible for ensuring we have the right data architecture teams in place across the data platform and its products and will collaborate with data delivery managers and wider digital service delivery teams to make sure data architecture practices are embedded consistently and to industry standard best practices
• help the data architecture practices thrive, you will call on your expertise in emerging data management approaches including on data centralisation and apply these to help the organisation deliver success
• develop our internal data architecture capability by developing L&D routeways, shaping careers paths and recruiting talent to the organisation
• provide leadership and guidance to a team of data architects and modellers, further developing your own data architecture, delivery management and leadership skills
• work with business stakeholders and across digital service teams, understanding their needs and translating them into high- and low-level architecture designs
• work with industry partners to leverage the best of new and emerging tools and approaches

Main Responsibilities:

• Strategic Planning: Develop and execute the data architecture and modelling strategy, aligning with business goals and data needs.
• Team Leadership: Use your expertise to build and maintain excellence in data architecture capabilities by building, leading, and mentoring a team of data architects and modellers, fostering a collaborative and high-performing environment.
• Data Solution Design: Design and model robust, scalable, efficient and cost-effective data solutions for data ingestion, transformation, and storage – and be the assurer of designs at architecture review boards such as Technical Design Authority.
• Data Quality: Ensure data quality and integrity across the data platform.
• Data Governance: Prescribe the level of data governance required, taking responsibility for assurance and make recommendations to ensure compliance with legal, regulatory and security standards.
• Collaboration: Work closely with business teams to understand data requirements and recommend design choices and provide technical expertise; and partner with senior leaders to provide assurance on solutions as they transition between design, implementation and live.
• Supplier Management & Oversight: Manage supplier relationships by setting performance standards, negotiating contracts, and ensuring high-quality outcomes.
• Capability Building: Make the data architecture practices thrive by exploiting new and emerging tools/approaches and using these to help the organisation deliver better services. 
  

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Accomplished expert Data Architect with extensive hands-on experience at a senior level of working with and designing patterns/approaches for cloud platforms in AWS that host data management systems and processes such as data integration, data quality & transformation processes, data matching and master data management at scale. (Lead essential criteria)
• Strong proficiency in data modelling, database technologies and designs, building data pipelines, with strong knowledge of ETL, SQL, NoSQL, Data Lakes and AWS cloud-based data solutions.
• Strong expertise in the full end to end data lifecycle for design, build and test, with extensive knowledge of data architecture, modelling concepts for data warehousing, data lakes and data lake houses.
• Expert in setting strategic direction at organisational level for the design of data architecture approaches involving data fabric, and managing these standards through architecture peer review such as Technical Design Authority.
• Significant data architecture leadership and management experience in a data environment with the ability to motivate individuals to deliver user excellence using highly developed interpersonal communication skills.
• Experience of mentoring and leading teams in Agile/DevOps delivery and working across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Demonstrable experience of setting up organisational data architecture processes from scratch or of implementing large changes to existing processes within an organisation that operate in an environment of highly sensitive personal data.
• Strong knowledge and application of data governance and data security and privacy through architecture designs, with familiarity with the legal and regulatory requirements around data, especially GDPR and Cloud Security Principles.
• Working at senior leadership level, establishing and maintaining organisational level networks and actively engaging other senior leaders.

Desirable Criteria

• You will have experience of working with the Quantexa Decision Intelligence Platform and Databricks.
• Management of contracts and 3rd party suppliers for software and professional services.
• Experience of leading a community of practice in a rapid delivery setting, setting up practice and community events and fostering a culture of learning and continuously improving ways of working.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Data governance (Expert)
• Turning business problems into data design (Expert)
• Data standards (Expert)

Benefits

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.