Principal Data Architect

Randstad is seeking a Principal Data Architect to lead the strategic design and technical evolution of the Labor Management Operations ecosystem for a major rail transportation leader in Washington DC. As a key technical authority with over 15 years of experience you will bridge the gap between legacy mainframe environments and modern near-real-time streaming architectures. You will be responsible for defining the overall information architecture ensuring data integrity across a complex portfolio and setting the enterprise standards for data modeling API contracts and security. This is a high-impact role that combines visionary architectural leadership with deep technical expertise in high-performance database tuning and event-driven systems.

• Architectural Leadership: Lead the design and implementation of the technical information architecture for the Labor Management ecosystem ensuring alignment with enterprise security and performance standards.
• Data Modeling: Create and maintain conceptual logical and physical data models including standardized event schemas and API contracts.
• Modernization & Integration: Analyze legacy mainframe data systems to inform future-state migrations and develop high-performance pipelines for real-time data transformation and Change Data Capture (CDC).
• System Optimization: Perform advanced database programming and query tuning to maintain peak performance and verify data integrity across the portfolio.
• Governance & Standards: Establish and implement policies for database management security and utilization contributing directly to the refinement of Enterprise Information Management (EIM) standards.
• Mentorship: Provide technical guidance research new information technologies and mentor engineering teams on best practices for information design and implementation.

• Experience: Minimum of 15 years of related work experience in Data Management specifically within Labor and Transportation systems.
• Industry Knowledge: Previous experience in the Rail industry is highly preferred.
• Technical Mastery: Demonstrated expertise in Information Architecture Data Modeling and both Relational and NoSQL technologies.
• Modern Stack: Proficiency with streaming technologies (e.g. Kafka Kafka Schema Registry) and distributed systems architecture.
• Legacy Systems: Proven ability to navigate and extract value from legacy environments including mainframe architectures.
• Education: Bachelors degree in Information Technology or a related field required; Masters degree in Engineering or Computer Science preferred.
• Communication: Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present complex technical concepts to diverse stakeholders.

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Background Check : No

Drug Screen : No