Role Description
TechPods is a UK-based technology co-sourcing company with offices in Bath, England and Sofia, Bulgaria. Unlike traditional IT outsourcing companies, TechPods' fully transparent model enables companies to scale quicker, while mitigating risk and reducing costs. We strongly believe that traditional outsourcing is dead, and the key to long-term success lies within partnering, as opposed to vendoring.
We're currently looking for a Data Architect who will take ownership of the architecture and initial delivery of a modern Azure Data Platform within one of our established partners. The platform will support a growing competence, compliance, and workforce management product offering, where data is a core product asset and a foundation for future predictive capabilities.
The technology direction has already been established, with Microsoft Fabric and Azure Databricks forming the core of the platform. Your role will be to translate this direction into a complete, secure, scalable, and commercially sustainable architecture, making the key technical decisions and guiding the engineering team through the initial implementation.
You will work closely with Microsoft and Databricks solution architects, internal engineering teams, and senior stakeholders to ensure the platform is designed and delivered to meet both current product requirements and long-term business objectives.
If you think you could be the talent we're looking for, then come and join the adventure!
What you'll be doing
- Produce a complete High-Level Design (HLD) to an agreed scope, covering environments, storage, ingestion per source, data modelling, orchestration, governance, security, network topology, compliance, consumption, machine learning, cost model, continuity, and delivery practices
- Own and document the key architectural decisions that remain open, including the commercial model, storage design, governance layer boundaries, orchestration tooling, and Power BI data access. Evaluate options, define decision criteria, provide recommendations, and assess the reversibility of each decision
- Lead the technical side of the vendor engagement with Microsoft and Databricks, arranging and conducting design review sessions with their solution architects
- Develop a workload and consumption model based on measurements from live platforms, providing the technical evidence needed to support commercial comparisons and multi-year spending decisions
- Guide the existing Data Engineers through the early stages of implementation, ensuring that what is built aligns with the agreed architecture
What we'll expect from you
- Proven experience designing end-to-end Azure Lakehouse platforms and confidently defending architectural decisions to vendor solution architects.
- Strong practical knowledge of both Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric, including their integration capabilities, interoperability, and limitations.
- Experience designing Databricks Unity Catalog governance, including catalogue structures, directory group-based access models, row-level and column-level controls, data lineage, and auditing.
- Strong understanding of Azure landing zone practices, including subscription and environment separation, private networking, managed identities, and secrets management.
- Experience building defensible workload and consumption models based on actual platform usage, with the ability to critically assess and challenge vendor pricing assumptions.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain technical architecture, recommendations, and supporting evidence clearly to non-technical stakeholders, executives, and board members.
- A transparent and evidence-based approach to decision-making, including the ability to clearly communicate what is known, what is not known, and the evidence behind each recommendation.
It would be an advantage if you also have:
- Experience working with regulated environments, sensitive personal data, and Data Protection Officers (DPOs).
- Experience with Azure Cosmos DB Change Data Capture (CDC) and mirroring data into OneLake.
- Practical MLOps experience, including model registry, model serving, and writing model outputs back into operational systems.
- Experience inheriting, assessing, and remediating undocumented legacy data platforms.
Our Technology Stack
- Cloud Platform: Microsoft Azure
- Data Engineering & Lakehouse: Azure Databricks, Microsoft Fabric
- Data Governance: Unity Catalog, RBAC, Data Lineage, Access Control
- Data Storage: Azure Storage, OneLake
- Data Integration: Azure Cosmos DB, Change Data Capture, Data Mirroring
- Analytics & Reporting: Power BI
- Machine Learning: Databricks ML, MLOps, Model Registry, Model Serving
- Security & Infrastructure: Azure Landing Zones, Private Networking, Managed Identity
- Ways of Working: Architecture Design, Technical Governance, Vendor Management
Why us?
- Excellent opportunity to work with leading-edge technologies
- Additional private health and dental care
- Flexible working hours, either from our new modern office, from home, or even remotely
- Co-funded MultiSport Card / Cool Fit Card to enjoy hundreds of indoor, outdoor, and wellness activities
- Co-funded Transportation card
- Having the great opportunity to work with passionate, knowledgeable, and experienced people, where your opinion is highly valued
- High team autonomy to make a significant impact on the company
- Part of a strong local tech community with lots of technology events
- Keep up-to-date with weekly company clubs, initiatives & regular teambuildings
- Self-development annual budget to spend on books, courses, and events
To apply for this role, please send your CV in English. All applications will be treated in a timely and confidential manner.