Position overview
The Data Architect is responsible for defining and governing the organisation’s data architecture, ensuring that data is structured, integrated, secured and managed effectively across telecommunications and enterprise IT environments.
The role develops turnkey enterprise and solution-level data architectures that support operational systems, analytics, reporting, artificial intelligence and digital services. This includes data generated across telecommunications networks, operational and business support systems, customer platforms and enterprise applications.
The Data Architect will work closely with business stakeholders, solution architects, data engineers, software developers, security specialists, vendors and delivery partners to translate business requirements into scalable and sustainable data solutions.
Key responsibilities
Data architecture and strategy
- Define and maintain enterprise and solution-level data architecture principles, standards and reference architectures.
- Develop data strategies and roadmaps aligned with business, technology and telecommunications objectives.
- Translate business and technical requirements into scalable data architectures and solution designs.
- Define target-state architectures and transition plans for modernising legacy data environments.
- Ensure data architecture supports operational processing, analytics, regulatory reporting, artificial intelligence and machine-learning requirements.
- Assess emerging data technologies and recommend appropriate solutions.
- Ensure individual project solutions align with the broader enterprise architecture and technology strategy.
Data modelling and design
- Develop conceptual, logical and physical data models.
- Define common data entities, relationships, taxonomies, naming standards and business definitions.
- Design data structures for transactional, operational, analytical and reporting environments.
- Establish canonical data models to support integration and information exchange across multiple systems.
- Review and approve database schemas, data models and data-related solution designs.
- Maintain data dictionaries, metadata standards and architecture documentation.
- Promote data consistency, reuse and interoperability across platforms.
Telecommunications data architecture
- Define architectures for data produced and consumed by telecommunications networks and supporting platforms.
- Work with data from telecommunications domains such as customer, product, service, resource, network, location, usage, billing and assurance.
- Support the integration and analysis of network events, alarms, performance data, call detail records, signalling data and service-quality information.
- Develop data architectures spanning operational support systems, business support systems, network management platforms and enterprise applications.
- Support high-volume, high-velocity and near-real-time telecommunications data-processing requirements.
- Apply relevant telecommunications information models and industry standards where appropriate.
- Ensure data solutions support network operations, service assurance, capacity planning, customer experience and commercial analysis.
Data integration and platform architecture
- Design data integration patterns across on-premises and hybrid environments.
- Define architectures for batch, real-time, event-driven and API-based data exchange.
- Develop solutions incorporating data warehouses, data lakes, lakehouses, operational data stores and streaming platforms.
- Establish standards for data ingestion, transformation, storage, distribution and consumption.
- Work with integration architects and engineers to design reliable data pipelines and interfaces.
- Ensure appropriate management of master data, reference data and metadata.
- Design for data scalability, availability, performance, resilience and recoverability.
- Support the selection and implementation of database, integration and data-platform technologies.
Data governance and quality
- Contribute to the development and implementation of data-governance frameworks.
- Define data ownership, stewardship, classification, retention and lifecycle-management requirements.
- Establish standards and controls for data quality, lineage, traceability and auditability.
- Identify critical data elements and define appropriate quality measures and controls.
- Work with business and technical stakeholders to resolve data-quality and data-consistency issues.
- Ensure architectural decisions support regulatory, contractual and organisational data obligations.
- Promote effective management of data as a strategic organisational asset.
Security, privacy and compliance
- Incorporate privacy and security requirements into all data architectures.
- Define requirements for data encryption, masking, tokenisation, segregation and access control.
- Ensure sensitive customer, employee, commercial and telecommunications data is appropriately classified and protected.
- Apply privacy-by-design and security-by-design principles.
- Work with cybersecurity, legal and compliance teams to address data sovereignty, residency, retention and regulatory requirements.
- Support security assessments, privacy-impact assessments and architecture reviews.
Architecture governance and assurance
- Establish and maintain data-architecture standards, patterns and design guidelines.
- Participate in architecture governance forums and design-review processes.
- Review project solutions for alignment with enterprise data architecture and governance requirements.
- Identify architectural risks, constraints, dependencies and technical debt.
- Document architecture decisions, exceptions and recommendations.
- Support project estimation, planning and implementation assurance.
- Provide architectural oversight throughout design, development, testing, migration and deployment.
Stakeholder engagement and leadership
- Engage with business stakeholders to understand information needs and strategic priorities.
- Communicate complex data concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Work collaboratively with enterprise architects, solution architects, data engineers, analysts, developers and project managers.
- Provide technical leadership and guidance to project and delivery teams.
- Coordinate architectural activities with telecommunications carriers, technology vendors and delivery partners.
- Facilitate data-design workshops and architecture reviews.
- Mentor team members and promote consistent data-management practices.
Qualifications and experience
- Tertiary qualification in information technology, computer science, data science, telecommunications, engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent industry experience.
- Demonstrated experience as a Data Architect, Information Architect, Solution Architect or senior data professional.
- Strong experience developing conceptual, logical and physical data models.
- Experience designing data architectures across complex enterprise environments.
- Strong understanding of databases, data warehouses, data lakes, lakehouses and analytical platforms.
- Experience with relational, non-relational, distributed and cloud-based data technologies.
- Strong understanding of data integration, APIs, messaging, event streaming and data-pipeline design.
- Knowledge of data governance, metadata management, master data management, data lineage and data-quality practices.
- Experience designing secure and privacy-compliant data solutions.
- Experience producing architecture diagrams, models, standards and solution-design documentation.
- Strong stakeholder-management, facilitation and communication skills.
Desirable experience
- Experience in the telecommunications industry or with carrier-grade platforms.
- Understanding of telecommunications network, customer, product, service, resource, usage and billing data.
- Experience with telecommunications operational support systems and business support systems.
- Knowledge of TM Forum frameworks and information models, including the Information Framework and Open APIs.
- Familiarity with mobile, fixed, core, radio access and IP network data.
- Experience processing call detail records, network events, alarms, telemetry or performance data.
- Experience with cloud data platforms such as Microsoft, Snowflake or Databricks.
- Knowledge of streaming and big-data technologies such as Kafka, Spark or equivalent platforms.
- Experience with data-modelling and governance tools.
- Familiarity with artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced analytics architectures.
- Relevant certifications in data architecture, cloud platforms, enterprise architecture or data governance.
Personal attributes
- Strong strategic, analytical and conceptual-thinking capabilities.
- Ability to translate complex business requirements into practical data solutions.
- Excellent attention to detail while maintaining an enterprise-wide perspective.
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills.
- Ability to influence stakeholders and establish agreement across multidisciplinary teams.
- Clear and confident communication with both technical and business audiences.
- A collaborative and consultative working style.
- Strong commitment to data quality, security and governance.
- Ability to balance immediate project requirements with long-term architectural objectives.
- Proactive approach to identifying risks, dependencies and improvement opportunities.
Key performance measures
Performance in the role will be assessed against:
- Alignment of data solutions with business and enterprise-architecture objectives.
- Quality, scalability and sustainability of data architectures.
- Adoption of common data models, standards and reusable design patterns.
- Improvement in data consistency, quality, accessibility and governance.
- Reduction in data duplication, integration complexity and technical debt.
- Compliance with security, privacy and regulatory requirements.
- Effectiveness of architectural governance and project assurance.
- Stakeholder satisfaction and quality of technical leadership.
- Successful delivery and operational adoption of data solutions.
Reporting relationships
Reports to: Head of Technology
Direct reports: Not applicable
Key relationships: Business stakeholders, enterprise and solution architects, data engineers, software developers, cybersecurity teams, analysts, project managers, telecommunications specialists, customers, vendors and delivery partners
Pay: $100,000.00 – $150,000.00 per year
Work Location: Hybrid remote in Melbourne VIC 3000
