Consulting Senior Data Architect (Microsoft Fabric Focus)

PLEASE NOTE:

• It is a 100% Remote position in Canada.
  
• Candidates Preferred from EST/CST Time Zone.
  

Key Responsibilities:

Microsoft Fabric Enablement (Hands-on Delivery + Standardization)

• Architect and implement Fabric solutions for data engineering (Spark), Data Factory pipelines, and real-time analytics / Event streams aligned to digital product needs.
  
• Build and standardize Fabric patterns for ingestion, transformation, and serving across workloads including operational analytics, near-real-time, batch, and data science/ML.
  
• Create repeatable reference implementations for common digital product scenarios (IoT telemetry, time series, transactional + event fusion, documents, geospatial).
  

Unified Data Platform Architecture (Target State + Roadmap)

• Produce and maintain the target-state architecture for Fabric-based data platform capabilities.
  
• Define domain-oriented data product patterns including how shared/enterprise datasets are curated and reused.
  
• Establish architectural boundaries and integration guidance for shared datasets vs. product-owned datasets.
  

Data Modeling Standards (Conceptual / Logical / Physical)

• Define and enforce data modeling standards and templates appropriate to Fabric Lakehouse/Warehouse patterns and product analytics needs.
  
• Provide modeling guidance for high-variance data types (telemetry, geospatial, documents) and hybrid operational-analytics use cases.
  
• Define standards for schema evolution, versioning, and contract-first data interfaces (where applicable).
  

Governance, Security, and Compliance by Design

• Design and implement a governance model covering classification, retention, lineage, and auditability.
  
• Ensure compliance guardrails are built into delivery patterns and operational processes to meet GDPR, ISO 27001, and data residency requirements.
  
• Define and enforce Fabric access controls using Entra ID, RBAC, and workspace-level controls (including guidance for separation of duties and least privilege).
  

CI/CD + Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for Fabric

• Define and implement a CI/CD approach for Fabric artifacts as the enterprise source of truth.
  
• Establish release patterns for Fabric changes (promotion strategy, environment separation, approvals, and quality gates) aligned to platform standards.
  
• Manage Fabric-related platform configuration using Terraform as the IaC approach (including reusable modules/patterns).
  
• Create golden path templates and guidance that product teams can adopt with minimal friction.
  

Capacity Planning, Cost Model, and Chargeback/Show back

• Design Fabric capacity strategy (SKU sizing, workload isolation, scaling model) to support multiple products reliably.
  
• Define guardrails and operational practices that reduce waste and improve predictability.
  

Reliability, Observability, and Operational Readiness

• Define reliability patterns and operational standards for data pipelines and real-time workloads.
  
• Integrate logging/monitoring with Log Analytics and security monitoring with Sentinel, including alerting and incident response considerations.
  
• Define and operationalize data quality SLAs (freshness, completeness, accuracy, timeliness) and embed quality checks into delivery pipelines.
  

Consulting Engagement + Governance Forums

• Participate in architectural governance and provide architecture review/sign-off, with authority to mandate standards when necessary to protect platform integrity
  
• Partner closely with platform engineering to align patterns across identity, network, DevOps, and security.
  

Working Style & Mindset

• Hands-on architect: you can design and build the critical Fabric artifacts to prove patterns.
  
• Platform-oriented: you think in reusable standards, templates, and repeatable governance.
  
• Strong consultative presence: you can advise product teams while also driving decisions and outcomes.
  
• Comfortable with authority: you can mandate standards when required to protect the platform and business.
  
• Documentation discipline: you produce clear ADRs, standards, and operating playbooks.
  

Engagement & Collaboration

• Supports product teams through office hours and project-based sprints.
  
• Works primarily with: Azure lead architect, security architect/engineer, DevOps platform engineer, and product engineering teams.
  
• Data ownership remains with product teams; this role defines the how (standards/patterns/governance), not centralized ownership.
  

Requirements

Required Deliverables:

You will be accountable for producing the following:

• Target-state architecture
  
• Data model standards: conceptual / logical / physical + templates
  
• Domain-oriented data product patterns and operating guidance
  
• Governance model: classification, retention, lineage, access controls
  
• Fabric workspace strategy + operating model (environments, isolation, ownership, lifecycle)
  
• CI/CD approach for Fabric artifacts integrated with platform guardrails
  
• IaC approach using Terraform for Fabric-related configuration and
  
• Cost model + capacity planning strategy (SKU sizing, isolation, show back/chargeback)
  
• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) for key platform decisions
  

Qualifications:

Required Experience & Skills

• 10+ years in data architecture/data engineering roles, including platform-scale design.
  
• Proven Microsoft Fabric production implementations you have delivered Fabric solutions that run in production with real operational constraints.
  
• Deep hands-on expertise in Fabric areas central to our rollout:
  
• Data Engineering
  
• Data Factory (pipelines)
  
• Real-time analytics / Event Streams
  
• Strong architecture capability across mixed data types: transactional, telemetry/events, documents, geospatial, time series.
  
• Demonstrated experience implementing and governing:
  
• Data modeling standards (conceptual/logical/physical)
  
• Data governance (classification, retention, lineage)
  
• Security patterns using Entra ID, RBAC, workspace-level controls
  
• Compliance guardrails for GDPR, ISO 27001, and data residency
  
• Strong DevOps fluency:
  
• CI/CD patterns and operational delivery
  
• Terraform as mandatory IaC for repeatability and standardization
  
• Ability to define standards and enforce guardrails while maintaining a delivery-first, pragmatic approach.
  

Preferred

• Experience supporting IoT and telemetry-heavy product ecosystems.
  
• Experience designing data quality frameworks and SLAs for operational analytics and near-real-time processing.
  
• Familiarity integrating observability/security signals into Log Analytics and Sentinel.