Associate Director - Data Architecture

Job Term : Contract-to-hire. Project Location : Onsite work (Ahmedabad, Gujarat). Interview Mode : Phone and /or Virtual (Video) interview. Job Description : This position is contract-to-hire, with a minimum of 3 months before conversion. Job Summary : Were looking for a strategic and technically strong Senior Data Architect to join our high-growth digital team. The selected person will play a critical role in shaping the companys global data architecture and vision. The ideal candidate will lead enterprise-level architecture initiatives, collaborate with engineering and business teams, and guide a growing team of engineers and QA professionals. This role involves deep engagement across domains including Marketing, Product, Finance, and Supply Chain, with a special focus on marketing technology and commercial analytics relevant to the CPG/FMCG industry. The candidate should bring a hands-on mindset, a proven track record in designing scalable data platforms, and the ability to lead through influence. An understanding of industry-standard frameworks (e.g., TOGAF), tools like CDPs, MMM platforms, and AI-based insights generation will be a strong plus. Curiosity, communication, and architectural leadership are essential to succeed in this role. Key Responsibilities : - Enterprise Data Strategy: Design, define and maintain a holistic data strategy & roadmap that aligns with corporate objectives and fuels digital transformation. - Ensure data architecture and products aligns with enterprise standards and best practices. - Data Governance & Quality: Establish scalable governance frameworks to ensure data accuracy, privacy, security, and compliance (e.g., GDPR, CCPA). - Oversee quality, security and compliance initiatives. - Data Architecture & Platforms: Oversee modern data infrastructure (e.g., data lakes, warehouses, streaming) with technologies like Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, and Kafka. - Marketing Technology Integration: Ensure data architecture supports marketing technologies and commercial analytics platforms (e.g., CDP, MMM, ProfitSphere) tailored to the CPG/FMCG industry. - Architectural Leadership: Act as a hands-on architect with the ability to lead through influence. - Guide design decisions aligned with industry best practices and e's evolving architecture roadmap. - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Marketing, Supply Chain, Finance, R&D, and IT to embed data-driven practices and deliver business impact. - Lead integration of data from multiple sources to unified data warehouse. - Cloud Optimization: Optimize data flows, storage for performance and scalability. - Lead data migration priorities, manage metadata repositories and data dictionaries. - Optimise databases and pipelines for efficiency. - Manage and track quality, cataloging and observability. - AI/ML Enablement: Drive initiatives to operationalize predictive analytics, personalization, demand forecasting, and more using AI/ML models. - Evaluate emerging data technologies and tools to improve data architecture. - Team Leadership: Lead, mentor, and enable high-performing team of data engineers, analysts, and partners through influence and thought leadership. - Vendor & Tooling Strategy: Manage relationships with external partners and drive evaluations of data and analytics tools. - Executive Reporting: Provide regular updates and strategic recommendations to executive leadership and key stakeholders. - Data Enablement: Design data models, database structures, and data integration solutions to support large volumes of data. Qualifications and Requirements : - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field. - 18+ years of experience in Information Technology. - 8+ years of experience in data architecture, data engineering, or a related field, with a focus on large-scale, distributed systems. - Strong understanding of data use cases in the CPG/FMCG sector. - Experience with tools such as MMM (Marketing Mix Modeling), CDPs, ProfitSphere, or inventory analytics preferred. - Awareness of architecture frameworks like TOGAF. - Certifications are not mandatory, but candidates must demonstrate clear thinking and experience in applying architecture principles. - Must possess excellent communication skills and a proven ability to work cross-functionally across global teams. - Should be capable of leading with influence, not just execution. - Knowledge of data warehousing, ETL/ELT processes, and data modeling. - Deep understanding of data modeling principles, including schema design and dimensional data modeling. - Strong SQL development experience including SQL Queries and stored procedures. - Ability to architect and develop scalable data solutions, staying ahead of industry trends and integrating best practices in data engineering. - Familiarity with data security and governance best practices. - Experience with cloud computing platforms such as Job