Integral to every Data Science team is an accomplished Data Architect. Essentially, a Data Architect creates blueprints for data management systems, assessing a company’s potential internal and external data sources to design, integrate, centralise, protect and maintain them.

A Data Architect can visualise, design and prepare data in a framework that can be used by Data Scientists, Engineers or Data Analysts. According to the IT website ‘Dataversity’, a Data Architect has the capability to ‘put order in data chaos’. The role of a Data Architect has evolved over the years, and the emergence of the Data Engineer has enabled the Data Architect to move away from building the data framework to visualising it.

Data Architects are amongst the highest paid individuals in IT today, and have become somewhat of ‘visionaries’, due to their expert knowledge of database architecture and key query languages. A Data Architect will work in tandem with a Data Engineer, conceptualising, visualising and completing the framework that creates the blueprint which the Data Engineer uses to build.

Responsibilities of a Data Architect vary somewhat depending on the size of the company and its data objectives. Core responsibilities of a Data Architect include: collaborating with IT teams to devise data strategies that meet organisational business requirements, creating fluid end to end visions of how data would flow through an organisation, building an inventory of data needed to implement the architecture, research new opportunities for data acquisition and more.

Data Architects are senior-level employees that have plenty of years of business intelligence under their belts. Data Architects will typically have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or a related field. Some Data Architects may hold an additional certification such as Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP) or IBM Certified Data Architect. Whilst these are beneficial, they are not always required by an employer.

Data Architects will also possess specialist technical skills, covering: Application server software like Oracle, Database management software (SQL) user interface / query software (IBM DB2), data modelling / predictive modelling / data mining tools, ETL etc. Data Architects are normally well versed in a language like Python, C or C++ and Java.

Whilst Data Architects are amongst the most technically well-versed IT professionals, they must also possess strong business and interpersonal skills to be successful. Database Architects must be naturally analytical problem solvers, able to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences. For a more senior Data Architect, they should have expert management skills, able to direct and advise a data science team of modellers, engineers and administrators. Above all, they should have expert industry knowledge and be keen to keep pace with the latest developments in database technology.

If you’re a Data Architect looking for your next role, get in touch with one of our specialist consultants today.

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