Data Lead/Architect with Microsoft Fabric / Power BI / Synapse

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Dice is the leading career destination for tech experts at every stage of their careers. Our client, Code Repo, is seeking the following.

Job Details

Job Title: Data Lead/Architect with Microsoft Fabric / Power BI / Synapse Location: Arlington, VA (Priority 1) and St. Louis, MO (Priority 2) - ONSITE Duration: Contract

Experience

• 12+ years in Data Architecture / Analytics Platforms / Cloud Data Engineering
• 4+ years in Microsoft analytics ecosystem (Fabric / Power BI / Synapse / Azure Data)
• Proven experience designing platforms for large enterprises (multi-team, multi-domain, 1k+ users)
• Experience implementing governance and security at scale

Key Responsibilities (Must-Have)

Fabric Platform Design & Workspace Architecture:

• Design scalable workspace and capacity strategy:
  • Domain-aligned and environment-separated structure (dev/test/prod)
  • Naming conventions, tagging/taxonomy, ownership model
• Design OneLake organization:
  • Folder conventions, zones (landing/curated/serving), lifecycle conventions
  • Standards for Delta table structure, partitioning, retention, and schema evolution
• Define item and data product blueprints:
  • When to use Lakehouse vs Warehouse vs Real-time capabilities
  • How to structure pipelines, notebooks, dataflows, and semantic models
• Define and implement architecture patterns:
  • Medallion architecture standards and curated modeling approach
  • Dimensional modeling strategy for data marts
  • Semantic model standards for reuse, performance, and governance

Security & identity Setup:

• Microsoft Entra ID group-based RBAC
• Least privilege patterns, separation of duties
• RLS/OLS patterns in semantic models

Design and Setup Governance, including but not limited to:

• Apply Fabric-native governance best practices:
  • Workspace roles and permission bundles for personas
  • Controlled sharing patterns to reduce data sprawl
  • Standards for certification/endorsement process
• Work with governance teams to ensure:
  • Metadata capture conventions are consistently applied
  • Data Lineage is captured
  • Sensitivity labeling strategy is embedded in workflows

Build Frameworks around DevOps & Automation:

• CI/CD (Git workflows, release/promotion strategies)
• Scripting/automation mindset (PowerShell/Python preferred; REST APIs)

Monitoring, Observability & Operational Readiness:

• Design and implement monitoring for:
  • Pipelines, notebooks, dataflows execution success and runtimes
  • Warehouse/Lakehouse query performance and refresh health
  • Semantic model refresh and usage trends
  • Capacity utilization and throttling patterns
• Define alerting thresholds, incident classification, and runbooks
• Drive operational readiness gates before production cutovers

Cost Optimization:

• Implement design-time and run-time cost optimization:
  • Scheduling and workload shaping to reduce peak contention
  • Reuse strategies (shared curated layers, shared semantic models)
  • Identify duplication and encourage governed reuse (OneLake alignment)
• Provide capacity strategy inputs:
  • Right-sizing, workload isolation guidance for critical workloads
  • Cost allocation approach by workspace/domain where feasible

Enablement, Standards, and Collaboration with Delivery Teams

• Define golden path patterns and accelerate delivery:
  • Templates and standards for pipelines and lakehouse layout
  • PR review checklists for Fabric engineering deliverables
• Provide architecture oversight during implementation:
  • Design reviews, technical governance checkpoints, risk mitigation
• Coach teams on best practices:
  • Performance, security, operational readiness, and governance adoption

Behavioral Competencies

• Strong architectural thinking with a platform engineering mindset
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication (technical + executive)
• Ability to define standards and drive adoption across teams
• Pragmatic approach balances governance with agility and self-service
• Strong documentation discipline (blueprints, playbooks, reference patterns)