Interim Consultant, Data, Taxonomy & AI Architecture Transformation

Interim Consultant, Data, Taxonomy & AI Architecture Transformation

6-Month Engagement | News Group Data & AI Team

This role complements the existing team by adding temporary architecture expertise and hands-on delivery.

Core mandate

1. End-to-end data & AI architecture: Define and operationalize a clear enterprise approach for how data and AI work together from ingestion through transformation, curation, serving, activation, and AI enablement.
2. Taxonomy, ontology & semantic foundations: Drive clarity and progress on taxonomy, ontology, metadata, and semantic structure to support discoverability, analytics, personalization, governance, and AI use cases.
3. Data onboarding standards & SLAs: Establish a consistent data onboarding model with measurable SLAs for speed, quality, ownership, lineage, documentation, and operational readiness.

What this person will do

• Drive stakeholder alignment and decision-making across architecture, governance, and operating model choices
• Stand up reusable patterns and practical frameworks the team can apply immediately
• Identify and unblock critical architectural and operational bottlenecks
• Translate ambiguity into action, with visible progress during the engagement
• Work side-by-side with the current team to embed changes that can be sustained after the engagement

Ideal Profile:

• Pragmatic and execution-focused, able to maximize impact within existing platform choices rather than re-opening foundational technology decisions
• Brings practical ideas for improving team productivity, speed, and quality through better workflows, tooling, and AI-assisted coding practices

Expected outcomes by end of engagement

• A clear, adopted core data and AI architecture approach
• An actionable taxonomy, ontology, and semantic strategy
• A working data onboarding model with defined SLAs and quality gates across News Group data assets
• Reusable standards, governance direction, and operating patterns in active use
• A prioritized 6-12 month roadmap and handoff materials for continuity

Required experience:

• 10+ years in data architecture, data platform engineering, information architecture, or AI systems architecture
• Deep enterprise data architecture expertise with strong hands-on understanding of Databricks and medallion design
• Strong experience in distributed data processing, data modeling, governance, observability, metadata strategy, and semantic modeling
• Production experience with AI / LLM-based systems, including RAG, vector databases, prompt orchestration, evaluation, monitoring, and governance controls. Understanding of fast evolving AI agent architectures.
• Deep understanding of how taxonomy, ontology, metadata, and semantic structures support scalable enterprise data and AI use cases
• Deep working knowledge of Databricks and AWS, with the ability to architect and execute within already-selected strategic platforms
• Strong understanding of how to improve technical team productivity through modern AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, and Codex

This consultant is being engaged to accelerate progress, clarify standards, and operationalize key changes in partnership with the existing team. The role is designed to add temporary capacity and specialist depth to the team.