Job Title: Data Architect

Location: Lake Forest, IL (Onsite once every 2 months)

Data Architect Retail Data Integration & Single Source of Truth

This role requires a unique combination of retail domain knowledge, data architecture expertise, cloud data platform experience, and stakeholder management capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

Retail Data Strategy & Architecture

Assess retailer data sources and current-state architecture.
Define a target-state enterprise retail data architecture.
Design a common retail data model (Canonical Data Model).
Establish a scalable "Single Source of Truth" framework.
Create data integration standards across retailer ecosystems.

Retail Data Integration

Lead integration of retailer data feeds including:

Walmart Scintilla/Luminate
Target RBD/VIQ
Kroger 84.51 / Stratum
Sam's Club MAP
Additional retailer data sources

Design ingestion patterns for:

APIs
Flat files
EDI feeds
SFTP integrations
Data subscriptions

Data Modeling

Design enterprise-wide:

Product hierarchy models
Inventory models
Customer/Retailer models
Store hierarchy models
Supply chain models
Sales and demand models

Create canonical definitions for:

Sell-through
On-hand inventory
In-transit inventory
Weeks of supply
Fill rate
OTIF
Forecast accuracy

Data Governance

Define data quality framework.
Establish KPI governance.
Design metadata management processes.
Create business glossary and data catalog structures.
Support Master Data Management (MDM) strategy.

Analytics Enablement

Architect data structures supporting:

Power BI
Tableau
Executive dashboards
Commercial analytics
Supply chain analytics
AI/ML use cases

Must-Have Retail Experience

Mandatory

Retail / CPG Experience

10+ years working in:

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
Retail Analytics
Retail Supply Chain
Retail Data Platforms

Must-Have Technical Capabilities

Data Architecture

Expert Level

Enterprise Data Architecture
Data Lake Architecture
Lakehouse Architecture
Data Warehouse Architecture
Canonical Data Modeling
Dimensional Modeling (Star Schema)
Data Vault 2.0 (preferred)

Deliverables Expected

Conceptual Data Model
Logical Data Model
Physical Data Model
Enterprise Data Flow Architecture

Cloud Data Platforms

Must Have

Experience with at least one:

Microsoft Azure (Preferred)
AWS
Google Cloud

Strong Preference

Azure Stack:

Azure Data Factory
Azure Synapse
Azure Data Lake Gen2
Microsoft Fabric
Azure Databricks
Azure SQL

Data Engineering & Integration

Must Have

ETL / ELT Architecture
API Integration
Event-driven Architecture
Batch Processing
Data Pipeline Design

Tools:

Azure Data Factory
Databricks
Informatica
Talend
SSIS
Kafka (preferred)

Retail Data Modeling Expertise

Candidate must understand:

Inventory Metrics

On-Hand Inventory
Available Inventory
Safety Stock
In-Transit Inventory
Weeks of Supply

Sales Metrics

POS Sales
Sell-In
Sell-Through
Unit Velocity

Supply Chain Metrics

OTIF
Fill Rate
Forecast Accuracy
Replenishment Metrics

Data Governance & MDM

Must Have

Data Quality Frameworks
Data Lineage
Metadata Management
Master Data Management
Data Catalog Implementation

Tools preferred:

Microsoft Purview
Collibra
Alation

Analytics & Reporting

Must Have

Understanding of:

Power BI
Tableau
Semantic Models
KPI Framework Design
Executive Dashboards

AI & Advanced Analytics (Preferred)

Experience enabling:

Demand Forecasting
Inventory Optimization
Predictive Analytics
Machine Learning Data Platforms
GenAI-enabled Insights

Preferred technologies:

Azure AI Services
Azure Machine Learning
Databricks ML

Soft Skills / Consulting Skills

Must Have

Executive stakeholder management
CTO/CIO level communication
Retail business process understanding
Workshop facilitation
Architecture governance
Vendor management

Ability to translate:

Retail Business Problem Data Architecture Technology Solution Business Outcome

Ideal Candidate Profile

Experience

12-15+ years overall experience
5+ years as Lead Data Architect
Retail/CPG domain experience
Large-scale enterprise data platform implementations

What Success Looks Like in the First 90 Days

Assess all retailer data sources and current architecture.
Define a Retail Canonical Data Model.
Produce target-state architecture and roadmap.
Create retailer-to-canonical mapping framework.
Define enterprise KPI definitions.
Deliver MVP architecture and Target integration.
Establish foundation for a Retail Single Source of Truth platform.

One-Line Requirement

"We need a Data Architect who has previously built a unified retail data platform across multiple retailer ecosystems and can rapidly design a scalable Single Source of Truth architecture for commercial, inventory, and supply chain analytics."

LiveMindz

Open Positions (1)

Engineering

Data Architect

Meet the Hiring Team