Senior Snowflake Data Architect & Engineering Lead

Job Profile Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Snowflake Data Architect & Engineering Lead to drive the technical strategy, architecture, and engineering excellence of our Snowflake-based data platform. This is a senior individual contributor role focused on deep technical expertise, solution design, and hands-on engineering leadership. The role does not include line management responsibilities but will work closely with engineering leads and delivery teams to ensure architectural integrity and platform scalability.

This role reports into the Head of Data Platform and works alongside the Data Engineering Lead, who manages the engineering team.

Key Responsibilities

Snowflake technical architecture Leadership

• Collaborate closely with the Data Architect and wider Architectural Team, ensuring all architectural work complies with established governance frameworks and integrates seamlessly across domains.

• Lead the design and ongoing development of Chaucer’s Snowflake data architecture, ensuring alignment with enterprise data strategies, and architectural governance standards.

• Evaluate and apply architectural patterns that support performance, scalability, and resilience across diverse data workloads, in line with enterprise architecture principles.

• Participate in architectural reviews and contribute to complex design decisions, maintaining technical integrity and consistency across the data estate.

 Engineering Excellence

• Promote engineering best practices across Snowflake implementations, including schema design, query optimisation, and data modelling using star and snowflake schemas.

• Define performance benchmarks and oversee tuning activities to enhance platform efficiency and manage cost.

• Provide technical leadership in developing reusable engineering patterns and automation frameworks.

Technical Strategy

• Serve as the primary technical contact for Snowflake, advising stakeholders on platform capabilities, new features, and integration approaches with systems such as Azure, DBT, and external systems.

• Develop and maintain the long-term technical roadmap for Snowflake, identifying areas for improvement and innovation.

• Work with the architectural team and TDA to ensure Chaucer architectural governance and security is maintained

 Collaboration & Influence

• Work with Architectural team, Data Engineering Leads and delivery teams to translate architectural plans into executable engineering tasks.

• Support troubleshooting of complex platform issues and provide guidance on advanced Snowflake techniques.

• Communicate technical direction and insights to cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders, operating without direct line management authority.

Governance & Standards

• Define and implement standards for Snowflake usage, including naming conventions, access controls, data masking, and metadata tagging.

• Partner with data governance, architectural and security teams to ensure compliance with internal policies and external regulations such as GDPR.

Innovation & R&D

• Track Snowflake’s product roadmap and industry developments, evaluating the relevance of features for Chaucer’s data platform.

• Manage proof-of-concept initiatives to assess the impact of emerging technologies on data architecture and engineering practices.

Documentation & Enablement

• Create and maintain architectural documentation, engineering playbooks, and onboarding materials to support knowledge transfer and platform adoption.

• Develop training content and lead enablement sessions for engineering teams to ensure consistent and scalable Snowflake usage.

Skills and Competencies

• Extensive hands-on experience with Snowflake, including architecture, engineering, and performance optimisation.

• Strong understanding of cloud data platforms (Azure preferred), data warehousing, and ELT/ETL pipelines.

• Proven ability to design scalable, secure, and cost-effective data solutions.

• Deep knowledge of data modelling techniques, including dimensional modelling and metadata management.

• Familiarity with tools such as DBT, Power BI, and SQLDBM is advantageous.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to influence without direct authority.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree; industry certifications in business / data analysis or insurance domain desirable.

ABOUT US

Chaucer is a leading insurance group at Lloyd’s, the world’s specialist insurance market. We help protect industries around the world from the risks they face. Our customers include major airlines, energy companies, shipping groups, global manufacturers and property groups.

Our headquarters are in London, and we have international offices in Bermuda, Copenhagen, Dubai and Singapore to be closer to our clients across the world. To learn more about us please visit our website.

Chaucer is committed to diversity, actively values difference and respects people regardless of the protected characteristics which are outlined in the Equality Act 2010 (UK legislation) as a result of the Equal Treatment Directive 2006 (EU legislation). 
A diverse workforce and an inclusive workplace are core to our success as a business and integral to our winning strategy and culture. We recruit from the widest available pool of talent, and our hiring, assessment and selection process is fair, free from bias and one which ensures we select the right person for the job, based on merit. We are committed to promoting a culture that actively values difference, and recognises that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect throughout their employment.
We are open to considering flexible working arrangements for all roles and encourage you to outline your needs during the interview process.