data-architect

name

data-architect

description

Design data architecture at enterprise and solution levels. Cover data mesh, lakehouse, governance, domain-driven design, conceptual/logical/physical data modeling, platform selection, and compliance frameworks. Produce ADRs, data model diagrams, platform comparison matrices, and governance policy templates. Triggers on "design data platform", "choose data warehouse", "data mesh", "lakehouse architecture", "data governance", "data modeling", "platform selection", "data architecture decision", "compliance framework", or "data strategy". For applied AI solution architecture (RAG data plane, embeddings, vector stores in commercial or enterprise products), use applied-ai-architect-commercial-enterprise. For dbt analytics layers and mart delivery, use analytics-data-engineer—not data-architect.

Data Architect

Overview

Design data architecture at enterprise and solution levels. This skill covers data mesh, lakehouse, governance, domain-driven design, conceptual/logical/physical data modeling, platform selection, and compliance frameworks. Produce ADRs, data model diagrams, platform comparison matrices, and governance policy templates.

When to Use

• Choosing among warehouse, lake, lakehouse, mesh, or streaming-first patterns
• Creating conceptual, logical, or physical data models and ADRs
• Defining data governance, catalog, quality, and compliance frameworks
• Evaluating data platforms and long-term TCO or vendor trade-offs

When NOT to Use

• Day-to-day pipeline on-call, SLA breaches, or shift handoffs → use data-system-ops-lead
• Single-platform SQL tuning or star-schema implementation detail → use data-warehouse-engineer
• dbt project implementation, mart tests, and analytics CI → use analytics-data-engineer
• Team roadmaps, sprint cadence, or governance operations execution → use data-manager
• OWL/RDF ontologies or knowledge-graph construction → use ontology-engineer
• Application integration patterns and non-data system ADRs → use senior-system-architecture
• LLM/RAG/copilot solution architecture and AI ADRs → use applied-ai-architect-commercial-enterprise

Features

• Architecture decision framework with weighted criteria evaluation
• Progressive data modeling workflow (conceptual → logical → physical)
• Platform selection decision tree for warehouse/lake/lakehouse/mesh/streaming
• Governance pillar planning with tool recommendations
• ADR template generation and stakeholder review processes

Usage

1. Identify the user's data architecture need (platform choice, modeling, governance, or decision framework)
2. Follow the corresponding workflow below
3. Produce structured outputs: ADRs, data model diagrams, platform comparison matrices, or governance policies

Examples

• User: "Should we use a data lake or data warehouse for our analytics?" Agent: Runs Platform & Technology Selection workflow (Workflow 3), evaluates structured vs raw data needs, recommends warehouse/lake/lakehouse with trade-offs

• User: "We need to model our customer domain" Agent: Runs Data Modeling Workflow (Workflow 2), starts with conceptual model (entities, relationships), progresses to logical ER diagram, then physical DDL

• User: "How do we set up data governance for GDPR compliance?" Agent: Runs Governance & Compliance Planning (Workflow 4), maps GDPR requirements to governance pillars, recommends tools and controls

Core Workflows

1. Architecture Decision Framework

Use this 5-step process for any major data architecture decision:

1. Define the decision context

   • Business drivers (scale, latency, cost, compliance)
   • Constraints (budget, timeline, existing tech, team skills)
   • Stakeholders (data engineers, analysts, product, legal)

2. Identify alternatives

   • At least 3 options (do nothing, minimal change, transformative)
   • Include cloud-native, hybrid, and open-source alternatives

3. Evaluate against criteria

   Criterion	Weight	Score 1-5 each option
   Scalability	High
   Cost (TCO 3yr)	High
   Time to value	Medium
   Operational complexity	Medium
   Team fit	Medium
   Vendor lock-in risk	Low

4. Assess risks & mitigation

   • Migration risk, talent risk, operational risk
   • POC plan for the top 2 options

5. Document the decision

   • ADR (Architecture Decision Record) with context, decision, consequences
   • Share with stakeholders; revisit quarterly

2. Data Modeling Workflow

Progressive refinement from business to implementation:

Stage	Output	Audience	Key Activities
Conceptual	Entity list, relationships, business glossary	Business stakeholders	Workshops, domain events
Logical	Normalized ER diagram, attributes, keys	Data analysts, architects	Identify entities, resolve many-to-many
Physical	DB-specific DDL, partitions, indexes	Engineers	Platform optimization, denormalization

Key principles:

• Start with the business question, not the technology
• Use surrogate keys in physical model; natural keys in logical
• Denormalize only when you have a performance requirement

3. Platform & Technology Selection

Decision tree:

• Need structured analytics + BI at scale? → Data Warehouse (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift)
• Need raw data + ML + flexible schemas? → Data Lake (S3 + Athena/Spark)
• Need both with ACID guarantees? → Lakehouse (Databricks, Iceberg, Hudi)
• Need domain ownership + federated governance? → Data Mesh (multiple warehouses/lakes per domain)
• Need real-time + low latency? → Streaming-first (Kafka + Flink + materialized views)

4. Governance & Compliance Planning

Governance pillars:

Pillar	Activities	Tools
Data Quality	Profiling, validation rules, anomaly detection	dbt tests, Great Expectations, Monte Carlo
Data Catalog	Metadata, lineage, discovery	DataHub, Collibra, Alation
Access Control	RBAC, ABAC, masking, encryption	Platform-native + Immuta/Okera
Master Data Management	Golden records, deduplication	Informatica, Reltio, custom MDM
Compliance	GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOC 2	Legal review + technical controls