Life at Ness
At Ness, people come first. Here, you'll be part of a vibrant team that values curiosity, innovation, and growth. We work with industry-leading clients on projects that truly make an impact while supporting every team member in carving out their unique career path. With resources for learning, certifications, and hands-on experiences, Ness offers you more than just a job—it’s a place where your ideas, ambition, and well-being matter.
Job Description – Data Architect
Role Purpose
The Data Architect will lead the assessment and design of the enterprise data architecture supporting the data security initiative. The role is responsible for understanding current-state data flows, designing target-state data architecture, improving data handling patterns, and minimizing reliance on sensitive identifiers.
Job Summary
The Data Architect will evaluate how data moves across applications, APIs, batch interfaces, integration platforms, data hubs, analytics environments, and downstream consumer systems. The role will identify architectural weaknesses and define modern, secure, and scalable patterns that reduce data exposure while supporting business requirements.
Working closely with the Security Solution Architect, the Data Architect will establish future-state architecture principles and help develop a roadmap for implementation.
Key Responsibilities
- Assess current-state data architecture.
- Analyze source-to-target data flows.
- Perform data lineage and dependency analysis.
- Review integration and propagation of sensitive data.
- Evaluate identifier usage and alternatives.
- Design target-state data architecture.
- Define secure integration patterns.
- Recommend data minimization strategies.
- Support governance and architecture workshops.
- Produce architecture standards and recommendations.
Required Technical Skills
- Enterprise Data Architecture
- Data Modeling
- Master Data Management
- Data Lineage & Metadata Management
- API Integration Patterns
- Event-Driven Architecture
- Data Warehousing & Data Lakes
- Cloud Data Platforms
- Data Governance Concepts
Preferred Skills
- Data Mesh
- Lakehouse Architectures
- Data Catalog Tools
- Integration Platforms
- Azure Data Services
- Kafka / Pulsar
- Enterprise Integration Patterns
Experience Required
- 8+ years in enterprise data architecture.
- Experience with complex system integration landscapes.
- Experience with customer and loyalty data environments.
- Experience designing secure data architectures.
Education & Preferred Certifications
Education
- Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Engineering, or related field.
Preferred Certifications
- TOGAF
- CDMP
- Azure Data Architect
- DAMA Certifications
Key Deliverables
- Current-State Data Architecture Assessment
- Data Flow & Lineage Maps
- Data Dependency Analysis
- Target-State Data Architecture
- As-Is vs To-Be Architecture Matrix
- Identifier Rationalization Strategy
- Integration Architecture Recommendations
- Architecture Roadmap
Key Stakeholders
- Enterprise Architecture
- Security Architecture
- Data Engineering Teams
- Integration Teams
- Application Owners
- Business Stakeholders
Success Measures / KPIs
- Completeness of current-state architecture assessment
- Accuracy of data lineage documentation
- Approval of target-state architecture
- Reduction in sensitive identifier propagation
- Adoption of architecture recommendations
Skills Required
- 10+ years of experience in enterprise security architecture or data security
- Experience leading large-scale data protection programs
- Experience assessing customer and loyalty ecosystems
- Ability to engage business and executive stakeholders
- Enterprise security architecture expertise
- Data security and privacy expertise
- Data protection controls knowledge
- Encryption and key management knowledge
- Access management and RBAC knowledge
- Data governance frameworks knowledge
- Risk assessment methodologies knowledge
- Security architecture review experience
- Cloud and hybrid security controls knowledge
- Data masking and tokenization knowledge
- PIPEDA experience
- GDPR experience
- PCI-DSS experience
- Privacy by Design knowledge
- Zero Trust security principles knowledge
- Data Loss Prevention knowledge
- Information security governance knowledge
- NIST and ISO 27001 security control framework knowledge
Ness Digital Engineering Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Ness Digital Engineering and has not been reviewed or approved by Ness Digital Engineering.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare coverage is often positioned as comprehensive, with medical and dental described as strong in North America. Wellness programs are also emphasized as part of the core package.
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Flexible Benefits — Flexible or remote work options are frequently highlighted as part of the overall rewards experience. Learning and upskilling support is repeatedly framed as a meaningful benefit tied to the employee value proposition.
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Fair & Transparent Compensation — Pay is characterized as generally “okay to good,” with stronger packages appearing for certain senior roles and some U.S. positions. This suggests compensation can be market-aligned when role level and geography are favorable.
Ness Digital Engineering Insights
What We Do
Ness Digital Engineering, acquired by global investment firm KKR in 2022, is a full-lifecycle digital engineering firm offering digital advisory through scaled engineering services. Headquartered in New York, Ness serves our customers across 11 innovation hubs in the US, Eastern Europe, and India. Combining our core competence in engineering with the latest in digital strategy and technology, we seamlessly manage Digital Transformation journeys from strategy through execution to help businesses thrive in the digital economy. For more information, visit www.ness.com
