Principal Data Architect

Salary Range:

Specific compensation will be based on candidate’s experience, skills, qualifications, commercial considerations, and other job-related factors permitted by law. At Russell Investments, salary is just one part of our compensation package. Our total rewards approach includes an annual performance bonus (subject to eligibility criteria) in addition to participation in our competitive benefits programs including healthcare, retirement, vacation, and wellbeing programs.

Job Description:

Principal Data Architect – Data Platforms

Russell Investments is seeking a hands-on Principal Data Architect to design and build modern data platforms across our enterprise. This role is focused on practical architecture, data modeling, and platform implementation in a hybrid (on-prem + cloud) environment.

You will work closely with engineering, analytics, and platform teams to design scalable data solutions, modernize legacy systems, and enable high-quality data for analytics and AI/ML use cases.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable data architectures, models, and pipelines for analytics and operational use cases.
• Build and optimize data warehouse and lakehouse solutions using modern cloud platforms (Snowflake, Databricks, Azure).
• Lead hands-on data modeling (3NF, dimensional, Data Vault) to ensure performance, consistency, and reuse.
• Execute migration of legacy systems (SQL Server, on-prem) to cloud-based architectures, including hybrid patterns.
• Implement data quality, MDM, and governance standards directly within data pipelines and models.
• Enable AI/ML use cases by designing reliable, well-structured, and observable data pipelines.
• Collaborate with engineering and analytics teams to deliver production-ready data solutions and guide technical design.

Qualifications

Required:

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in data architecture or data engineering
• Strong expertise in SQL and relational databases (SQL Server preferred)
• Experience building data pipelines using DBT (3+ years preferred)
• 5+ years of Proven experience designing and implementing cloud data platforms (Azure preferred)
• Deep knowledge of data modeling (3NF, dimensional, Data Vault)
• Experience with data warehouse/lakehouse design and optimization
• Hands-on experience with data migration and hybrid architectures
•  Excellent communication and stakeholder management across technical and business domains with a demonstrated ability to translate architecture into business outcomes.

Preferred:

• Experience with Snowflake, Databricks, Spark, or Python
• Familiarity with data quality, observability, and governance tools
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines or MLOps frameworks
• Financial services or investment domain experience

This role is not eligible for employment-based immigration sponsorship. Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States without employer sponsorship, now or in the future.

Equal Employment Opportunity 

Russell Investments is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all associates and employment applicants regardless of race, religion, ancestry, creed, color, gender (including gender identity which refers to a person's actual or perceived sex, and includes self-image, appearance, behavior or expression, whether or not different from that traditionally associated with a person's biological sex), age, national origin, citizenship status, disability, medical condition, military status, veteran status, marital status, sexual orientation,  past or present unemployment status , or any other characteristic protected by law.