Data Architect, Principal

** This role is not eligible for sponsorship AND is four days onsite hybrid at our N. Scottsdale office **

Who are we looking for?

Choice Hotels has an exciting new opportunity as our Principal Data Architect in the SkyTouch Technology division. SkyTouch Technology is an independently operated division of Choice Hotels that provides the most widely used cloud-based (SaaS) hotel property management system.

As a senior technical authority, you will define and advance the enterprise data architecture strategy that underpins a large-scale, multi-tenant SaaS ecosystem. You will operate at the intersection of data engineering, platform architecture, governance, and analytics, ensuring our data platform is scalable, secure, resilient, cost-efficient, and AI-ready.

This role leads complex, cross-domain data initiatives and partners with senior technology and business leadership to align data architecture with enterprise IT strategy and long-term innovation priorities. You will focus on durable architectural standards, canonical data models, governance guardrails, and scalable AWS-native platform capabilities rather than feature-level delivery.

This is an individual contributor role with significant enterprise influence. You will shape how data is modeled, integrated, governed, and evolved across engineering domains.

Are you a senior architect who thrives on defining standards, solving systemic problems, and guiding long-term data platform evolution? Someone who prefers durable architecture and scalable guardrails over one-off fixes. The #SkysTheLimit when you #MakeItYourChoice! We encourage you to apply today!

Your Responsibilities

• Define and evolve enterprise data architecture strategy across analytical, operational, and event-driven systems in a multi-tenant SaaS environment.
• Lead cross-domain data initiatives that require architectural alignment across multiple engineering teams.
• Establish canonical data models, semantic standards, and enterprise metric consistency to support analytics and reporting at scale.
• Architect scalable AWS-native data platforms using services such as Amazon S3, AWS Glue, EMR, Amazon Redshift, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon MSK, Amazon EventBridge, and AWS DMS.
• Design and govern ingestion patterns including batch, streaming, and CDC-based integration approaches.
• Define architectural standards for non-functional requirements including scalability, availability, tenant isolation, observability, resiliency, and cost transparency.
• Establish technical publication standards and governance guardrails for production data assets.
• Enable AI-ready data platforms and integration with machine learning services such as Amazon SageMaker by ensuring trusted, well-governed datasets.
• Partner with engineering leadership to embed architectural standards into platform design and development practices.
• Evaluate emerging data technologies and guide long-term platform evolution, balancing innovation with operational durability.

Your Experience, Skills & Competencies

• 15+ years of experience in data engineering, distributed systems, or data platform architecture roles.
• Experience designing and operating multi-tenant SaaS data platforms at enterprise scale.
• Deep expertise in analytical data modeling, including dimensional modeling, semantic layer design, and cross-domain metric governance.
• Experience designing and evolving data warehouses, data lakes, and lakehouse-based analytical platforms.
• Experience implementing CDC, event-driven, and streaming data integration patterns.
• Strong experience working in AWS public cloud environments and understanding the reliability, scalability, and operational implications of cloud-managed services.
• Experience embedding data governance, metadata management, lineage, quality validation, and security controls into platform architecture.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architectural decisions across teams without formal positional authority.
• Proven experience conducting architectural tradeoff analysis across scalability, governance, performance, and cost dimensions.
• Strong executive communication skills, capable of translating technical complexity into business-relevant decisions.

• Successful candidates for this role consistently demonstrate strength in the following Korn Ferry competencies:
  • Manages Complexity – Synthesizes information across systems and domains to solve high-impact architectural challenges.
  • Decision Quality – Makes sound architectural decisions that balance immediate needs with long-term platform sustainability.
  • Drives Results – Establishes durable data standards and scalable architecture that measurably improve platform reliability and governance.
  • Strategic Mindset – Anticipates future technology shifts and aligns architecture to evolving business priorities.

Your Team

This is an individual contributor role reporting to a Software Engineering Leader. You will collaborate closely with engineering managers, staff and senior engineers, enterprise architects, security, analytics, and product stakeholders across SkyTouch Technology.

**This role is not eligible for sponsorship**

Choice prioritizes our associate wellbeing by offering a comprehensive benefits program that is both competitive and flexible to help you achieve your wellbeing goals - here are just a few:

• Competitive compensation and benefits, including medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Leave and paid time-off for holidays, vacation, personal, family, volunteer, sick, jury duty, bereavement, military, and religious observance
• Financial benefits for retirement and health savings
• Employee recognition programs
• Discounts at Choice hotels worldwide

About Choice

Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), is one of the largest lodging franchisors in the world. With 7,500 hotels in 45+ countries and territories, we offer a range of high-quality lodging options in the upper upscale, upper midscale, midscale, extended stay, and economy segments. We’re the hotel company for those who choose to bet on themselves — the striver, the dreamer, the entrepreneur — because that’s who we are, too.

At Choice, we are united by the simple belief that tomorrow will be even better than today — for associates, our company, and our franchisees. At our worldwide corporate headquarters in North Bethesda, Maryland, at our technology center in Scottsdale, Arizona, and through our associates around the globe, every voice is heard and every idea is listened to, no matter what area of the company they come from. We are united in supporting the entrepreneurial dreams of our thousands of franchise owners, which propels us forward — giving our work at Choice a purpose larger than our business.

Our corporate office locations:

North Bethesda, MD — Located at Pike & Rose, our worldwide headquarters is less than 15 miles from Washington, D.C., one block away from the North Bethesda Metro station, with easy access to I-495, complimentary parking, electronic charging stations, restaurants and retail.

Scottsdale, AZ — Located at the northwest corner of Loop 101, the Scottsdale office is home to our technology, eCommerce and customer service organizations, with easy access to complimentary parking, electronic charging stations, restaurants and retail.

Minneapolis, MN — Select roles are based in our Minneapolis office on Highway 394, near the intersection with Highway 100, only five minutes from downtown.

Field/Remote — Select roles designated as field/remote will require associates to work from a home office, connecting virtually with Choice team members and leadership on Zoom, with possible required travel depending on the role.  

Choice’s Cultural Values

Welcome and Respect Everyone | Be Bold | Be Quick | Listen | Be Curious | Show Integrity

Choice’s Leadership Principles

Act with Intention | Lead with Authenticity | Grow & Deliver