Data Architect

Summary

WORKING FOR THE CITY OF MCKINNEY
Working for the City of McKinney is more than a job. It is an opportunity to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others. It is also an opportunity to have a hand in the development of one of the fastest growing communities in the nation. Proudly recognized on the Top Workplaces USA list by USA TODAY, our team is dedicated to making McKinney one of the best places to work, live, and raise a family. That’s why we exist. Join us and start making a difference today.

OUR CORE VALUES
City of McKinney employees work hard and at a very fast pace. However, we also look after and support one another. All of us are guided by four employee-inspired values – Respect, Integrity, Service, and Excellence (RISE). We are also supported by servant-based leaders who foster and support a healthy, family-oriented culture. All new employees are expected to embrace and live by our core values and commit to helping us sustain our exceptional work environment as a high-performance organization (HPO).

SUMMARY OF POSITION
The Data Architect is a senior IT professional responsible for designing, developing, and managing the organization’s data infrastructure to ensure efficient, secure, and scalable data storage, processing, and retrieval. This role involves creating data models, defining data architecture frameworks, and aligning data systems with business objectives to support decision-making, analytics, and compliance. The Data Architect collaborates with cross-functional teams, including data engineers, analysts, and business stakeholders, to translate business requirements into technical solutions, ensuring data integrity, accessibility, and security. This position will be essential in contributing to business innovation and operational efficiency.

Essential Functions/Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities

GENERAL EXPECTATIONS FOR ALL EMPLOYEES
In order for us to continue to achieve our primary function of making McKinney a better place to live, work, and raise a family, we hold these expectations for all employees.

• Learn and demonstrate an understanding of how team, department, and City goals are interconnected.
• Contribute to a positive work culture.
• Maintain regular and reliable attendance.
• Ability to assess his/her work performance or the work performance of the team.
• Contribute to the development of others and/or the working unit or overall organization.
• Ability and willingness to work as part of a team, to demonstrate team skills, and to perform a fair share of team responsibilities.
• Ability to continuously learn and develop through a mix of internal and external training opportunities, and if applicable, encourage subordinates to do the same.

• Develops and maintains conceptual, logical, and physical data models to support business needs, ensuring scalability and performance.
• Creates and implements database solutions, data warehouses, and data lakes to store, retrieve, and manage City information.
• Ensures data quality and consistency for reliable decision-making.
• Optimizes data structures to improve reporting and dashboard performance.
• Designs and executes data migration strategies, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes, and integration workflows to ensure seamless data flow across systems.
• Establishes data lineage, cataloging, and data stewardship practices.
• Produces architecture artifacts such as target state diagrams, data flow maps, data contracts, and decision records.
• Leads enterprise-wide data strategy initiatives, including governance, lifecycle management, and innovation alignment.
• Architects scalable platforms that support advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI-driven decision-making.
• Drives cross-departmental data integration to unify disparate sources and enable a single source of truth.
• Mentors junior data professionals and provide architectural guidance on modeling, security, and performance optimization.
• Evaluates and introduces emerging technologies (e.g., data mesh, real-time streaming) to enhance agility and scalability.
• Establishes and enforce data governance policies, ensuring data accuracy, security, and compliance with industry regulations (e.g., PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CJIS).
• Monitors and optimize database performance, troubleshoot issues, and implement improvements to enhance efficiency and reliability.
• Provides technical guidance to support system maintenance and upgrades.
• Collaborates and communicate with stakeholders with various technical skill levels.
• Leads cross-functional teams in data stewardship and literacy.
• Assesses and recommend tools, technologies, and platforms to support data architecture needs.
• Maintains awareness of new technologies and advances in the profession; reading professional literature; attending workshops and training sessions as appropriate.
• Produces detailed, consistent, error-free work based on defined parameters.
• Adheres to assigned work schedule and department attendance policies and procedures.
• Travels to meetings, trainings, and City events as necessary.
• Complies with all written City policies and procedures.

• Perform other duties as assigned or directed.

• Ability to embrace and embody the City’s core values of Respect, Integrity, Service, and Excellence (R.I.S.E.).
• Ability to communicate effectively with peers, supervisors, subordinates, and people to whom service is provided.
• Ability to produce desired work outcomes, including quality, quantity, and timeliness.
• Ability to plan and organize work, time, and resources, and if applicable, that of subordinates.
• Ability to forge strong professional relationships with internal staff, in an outgoing and friendly way.
• Advanced proficiency with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MongoDB).
• Strong expertise in data modeling tools (e.g., Erwin, ER/Studio).
• Working knowledge of cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud) and their data services.
• Experience with ETL/ELT tools and data integration platforms and orchestration tools (e.g. Synapse, Redshift, Apache Airflow, Mulesoft, Snowflake).
• Proficiency in scripting languages (e.g., SQL, Python, Scala, YAML, Shell, Terraform, JSON).
• Skilled and proactive project manager with ability to independently plan, coordinate, and organize work; set priorities, and meet critical deadlines.
• Ability to identify and resolve problems in a timely, efficient, and effective manner.
• Ability to summarize complicated technical issues in a brief, common-sense manner.
• Technical writing experience in relevant areas, including queries, reports, and presentations.
• Ability to quickly gain job knowledge and technical competency through independent learning, collaborative training, and supportive coaching from management and peers.
  • Ability to learn and effectively communicate about professional fields which may be outside the employee’s previous experience.

• Ability to exercise independent judgment, decisiveness, and creativity required in situations involving the evaluation of data against measurable or verifiable criteria.

• Skill in facilitating discussions and interaction with potentially large groups of individuals.
• Ability to work in a team environment; contribute as a team member and treat co-workers, subordinates, and customers with respect.
• Ability to multi-task in a high activity/energy professional environment that includes multiple and concurrent projects and project deadlines
• Exhibits flexibility and adaptability, especially during times of change.
• Proven expertise in data observability and lineage solutions (Monte Carlo, Collibra, Alation, DataHub) to ensure trust, governance, and visibility across Snowflake data pipelines.
• Advanced proficiency in infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for Snowflake and cloud-native data platforms using Terraform, Pulumi, or AWS CloudFormation.
• Hands-on experience architecting and deploying containerized data services with Kubernetes, Docker, and Helm to support scalable Snowflake integrations and orchestration.
• Working knowledge of graph databases and semantic modeling (Neo4j, Amazon Neptune) to complement Snowflake-based architectures with advanced metadata, relationship mapping, and knowledge graph capabilities.

Required Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Any work related experience resulting in acceptable proficiency levels in the below Minimum Qualifications may be an acceptable substitute.

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software/Computer Engineering, or a related field. Five (5) years of experience in data architecture, data warehousing/modeling, cloud platform architecture, and enterprise database design.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Enterprise/Information Architecture, or a related field.
• Industry-recognized certifications such as Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP); TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) for enterprise architecture; Cloud Data Architect Certificates (Azure Solutions Architect Expert AWS Solutions Architect – Professional, or Google Professional Cloud Architect).
• Four (4) years of experience with data lakehouse architectures and tools (e.g. Snowflake, Databricks).
• Snowflake data integration and orchestration (Snowpipe, Streams, Tasks)
• Performance optimization and query tuning in Snowflake
• Data modeling and schema design tailored for Snowflake
• Snowflake security features (RBAC, masking, encryption)
• Four (4) years of experience implementing data mesh or distributed data architecture concepts.
• Advanced Experience: Eight (8) years of experience in data architecture, with a focus on cloud-based solutions or large-scale enterprise systems.

• Must pass a drug screen and background check.
• Must have Class C Texas Driver’s License.
• Must have or obtain CJIS Certification within 30 days of hire.
• Must obtain Snowflake SnowPro Core within 6 months of hire.
• Must obtain SnowPro Advanced: Architect within 12 months of hire.

Physical Demands/Supplemental

PHYSICAL DEMANDS
Tasks involve the ability to exert light physical effort in sedentary to light work, but which may involve some lifting, carrying, pushing and/or pulling of objects and materials of light weight (5-10 pounds). Tasks may involve extended periods of time at a keyboard or workstation. Some tasks require visual and sound perception and discrimination and oral communications ability.

WORK ENVIRONMENT
There is limited exposure to environmental conditions.

The above statements describe the general nature and level of work being performed as of the date of preparation and approval. They are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of the position. Employees holding this position will be required to perform any other job-related duties as requested by management. The job description does not constitute an employment agreement between the employer and employee, and all requirements are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities.

The City of McKinney is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) committed to an alcohol / drug free workplace and to providing equal opportunities regardless of age, race, color, gender, religion, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

The City offers a full complement of benefits:

Health Insurance

• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance
• Health Savings Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Medical and Childcare Account (FSA)
• Mental Health Care and Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• City-paid and Voluntary Life Insurance
• City-paid and Voluntary Long Term Disability Insurance
• Supplemental Insurance through Aflac

• Legal Services through Legal Shield
• Tuition Reimbursement (up to $10,000 per year)
• Wellness Program (earn up to $600 per year)

• Texas Municipal Retirement System (TMRS)
  • Mandatory 7% employee contribution
  • City match 2:1
  • 5 year vesting
  • Retire after 20 years of service, or age 60 with 5 years of service
• 457(b) Deferred Compensation Plans

• Paid Vacation (80 hours per year for new hires; tiered increases after 2 yrs)
• Sick Leave (135 hours per year for yourself and immediate family)
• Paid Parental Leave (80 hours for birth, adoption, or placement of a child in foster care)
• Ten Paid Holidays
• Personal Day
• Optional compensatory time for hourly employees
• Compensatory time for salaried employees