Role Overview
- The Principal Data Architect – APJ Snowflake Data Platform will provide technical architecture leadership for the design, evolution, and governance of the APJ enterprise data platform.
- This role will define the target architecture and technical standards for a scalable, secure, and governed data ecosystem centered on Snowflake, supporting enterprise data engineering, business intelligence, advanced analytics, and AI use cases across APJ.
- The Principal Data Architect will work closely with Data Engineers, BI and Analytics teams, business stakeholders, and global technology teams to translate business and data requirements into sustainable enterprise architecture.
- This is not only an advisory architecture role. The successful candidate is expected to have deep hands-on Snowflake expertise and be able to review technical designs, challenge engineering decisions, troubleshoot complex issues, and provide practical architectural guidance.
Key Responsibilities
1. Snowflake Platform Architecture
- Define and evolve the target architecture for the APJ Snowflake data platform.
- Design scalable architecture patterns for enterprise data ingestion, transformation, storage, consumption, and analytics.
- Establish architectural principles for database, schema, warehouse, and data-layer design.
- Define architecture supporting BI, Advanced Analytics, Data Science, and AI workloads.
- Ensure architecture decisions balance scalability, performance, security, maintainability, and cost.
2. Enterprise Data Architecture
- Define common architectural patterns for integrating major enterprise data domains.
- Establish data-layer and data-modeling principles across source, transformation, and consumption layers.
- Define reusable architectural patterns that can be adopted across APJ markets.
- Guide the design of trusted and reusable enterprise data products.
- Ensure local market requirements can be accommodated without unnecessary architectural fragmentation.
3. Snowflake Security & Access Architecture
- Define Snowflake security and access-control architecture.
- Establish principles for role-based access control and appropriate separation of responsibilities.
- Partner with Security and Identity teams on enterprise access requirements.
- Provide architecture guidance for secure handling of sensitive commercial and customer data.
- Snowflake role design and security-related approvals are already among the architecture topics documented internally.
4. Data Integration & Transformation Architecture
- Define architectural standards for data ingestion and transformation using Fivetran and dbt.
- Establish patterns for source-to-Snowflake integration.
- Define scalable approaches for ELT and transformation architecture.
- Guide engineering teams on reusable dbt models and data-layer design.
- Review pipeline and transformation designs for architectural consistency.
5. Architecture Governance & Design Authority
- Serve as a technical design authority for major APJ data platform initiatives.
- Lead architecture and solution design reviews.
- Review technical proposals and identify architecture risks, dependencies, and technical debt.
- Define and maintain architecture standards, principles, and reusable patterns.
- Ensure new data solutions align with the APJ target architecture.
- Partner with engineering teams to move from architecture design to practical implementation.
6. Platform Resilience & Operational Architecture
- Define architectural principles for platform resilience, data protection, and recoverability.
- Partner with relevant technology teams on business continuity and disaster recovery requirements.
- Identify architectural risks and recommend improvements to platform resilience.
- Disaster Recovery for Snowflake has also been an active internal architecture topic.
7. AI-Ready Data Architecture
- Define a data architecture capable of supporting AI/ML and Generative AI workloads.
- Establish architectural patterns for governed consumption of enterprise data by AI applications.
- Work with Data Science and AI teams to ensure the underlying data platform supports emerging AI requirements.
- Evaluate how Snowflake capabilities can be incorporated into the broader APJ data and AI architecture.
- Internal discussions also reference the use of Snowflake for AI-related development and scaling data capabilities.
Required Qualifications
Snowflake Expertise
- Deep hands-on experience with Snowflake is mandatory, including:
- Enterprise Snowflake architecture and solution design
- Data warehouse and analytical data architecture
- Snowflake security and access architecture
- Advanced SQL
- Data modeling
- Performance and scalability considerations
- Production troubleshooting
- Data integration architecture
Data Engineering & Architecture
Strong knowledge and practical experience in:
- dbt
- Fivetran
- Modern ELT/ETL architecture
- Enterprise Data Warehousing
- Data Modeling
- Data Integration
- Data Quality
- Data Governance
- Git-based development and CI/CD concepts
- Cloud data architecture
- The candidate should be technically strong enough to challenge and guide Principal/Senior Data Engineers, rather than functioning only as a high-level solution architect.
Language Requirements
Japanese
- Business-level proficiency required
- The candidate must be able to independently:
- Conduct architecture discussions with Japanese stakeholders.
- Translate business requirements into technical architecture.
- Explain complex technical decisions to both technical and non-technical audiences.
English
- Business-level proficiency required
- The candidate must be able to collaborate effectively with APJ and global technology, architecture, security, and data teams.
Preferred Qualifications
- Pharmaceutical or Life Sciences industry experience
- Experience architecting large-scale enterprise Snowflake platforms
- Experience with pharmaceutical commercial and customer data
- Experience with Master Data Management
- Data Governance and Data Quality framework experience
- Experience designing platforms supporting Power BI
- Experience supporting AI/ML or Generative AI solutions
- Experience working across multiple APJ markets
- Experience establishing architecture standards and conducting technical design reviews
What We Expect from a Principal Data Architect
- This role goes beyond producing architecture diagrams.
- The successful candidate will:
- Own the technical direction of the APJ Snowflake data platform
- Establish architecture standards and reusable patterns
- Act as a technical authority for Snowflake architecture
- Challenge and approve critical technical design decisions
- Identify architectural risks and technical debt
- Guide Data Engineers through complex implementation decisions
- Bridge Global architecture standards and APJ/Japan requirements
- Remain sufficiently hands-on to investigate and resolve complex platform issues
Date Posted
05-11月-2026
Closing Date
30-1月-2027
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