Position Overview

The senior data architect is an individual contributor who leads the strategy and hands-on architecture of HAI’s enterprise data platform. This role ensures trusted, secure, and performant data for analytics and reporting today while establishing the runway for future capabilities. The Data Architect partners across Applications, Infrastructure/Cloud, Cybersecurity, and business stakeholders and operates within HAI’s SAFe Agile processes.

Essential Functions

Architecture & Strategy

• Own and evolve the enterprise data architecture roadmap aligned to business priorities, balancing near‑term delivery with long‑term scalability.
• Define reference architectures across data warehouse, and lakehouse patterns; set standards for modeling, integration, and access.
• Evaluate emerging technologies; lead proofs‑of‑concept and make recommendations for adoption.
• Translate business needs into platform capabilities and sequencing with stakeholders.

Data Modeling & Integration

• Own canonical/subject‑area models and dimensional designs (e.g., star, data vault as appropriate) to support trusted analytics and operational reporting.
• Set standards for data contracts, schema evolution, and metadata conventions across pipelines and data stores.
• Guide and review ELT/ETL designs for reliability, performance, and reusability.
• Establish lineage and documentation so teams and auditors can trace data origin, transformation, and use.

Data Governance, Security & Quality

• Define and enforce data governance policies (classification, retention, access) with data owners and the Security team.
• Set data quality expectations/SLOs and implement monitoring/alerting with documented remediation workflows.
• Ensure role‑based access control, encryption, and privacy‑by‑design practices across the stack.
• Maintain rigorous change control and testing processes for data systems.

Platform Engineering & Operations

• Define reliability, observability, and cost guidelines; collaborate with Infrastructure/Cloud to plan capacity, scaling, and cost optimization.
• Champion CI/CD and infrastructure‑as‑code patterns for data components (e.g., ARM/Bicep/Terraform) and promote automated testing for data pipelines.
• Oversee environment strategy (dev/test/prod), release readiness, backup/restore, and disaster recovery for data assets.

Analytics Enablement

• Define and maintain the enterprise semantic layer to enable governed self‑service analytics in Power BI.
• Optimize data models and query performance for BI; coach analysts on modeling/DAX best practices.
• Partner with underwriting, claims, actuarial, finance, and other domains to translate use cases into scalable data solutions.

Stakeholder, Vendor & Partner Leadership

• Serve as the architectural focal point with internal teams and selected vendors for the data warehouse/lakehouse program.
• Communicate architectural decisions, trade‑offs, and roadmaps to technical and non‑technical audiences.

People Leadership, Mentorship & Collaboration

Mentorship & Culture

• Mentor data engineers and analysts via reviews, pairing, and reusable patterns; set clear quality bars across modeling, integration, and BI.
• Foster a culture of craftsmanship, documentation, and continuous improvement within the data community.

Cross-Domain Collaboration

• Applications: Co‑design data contracts and change‑safe schemas; plan versioning/compatibility; embed performance & reliability NFRs into app delivery.
• Infrastructure/Cloud: Align on capacity, performance, and cost guardrails (Synapse/Databricks/ADLS); define observability/DR for pipelines and data stores.
• Cybersecurity: Build to the Information Security Charter and A.6 Security Policy (classification, least‑privilege/RBAC, encryption); engage early on risk reviews and incident runbooks.

SAFe Agile 

• Participate in PI Planning, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt; coordinate dependencies with RTE, System Architect/Engineering, Product Management/Owners.
• Shape the flow of data work: propose Enablers for platform runway; set Definition of Ready/Done for data items (tests, lineage, docs, performance).
• Where domains overlap, create lightweight working agreements so responsibilities are clear without added bureaucracy.

Competencies 

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Relational database structures, principles, and practices for both transactional and analytic architectures.
• Understanding of insurance industry concepts (policy, claims, reinsurance, regulatory reporting) and ability to model insurance data domains is highly desirable.
• SQL Server (configuration and programming) and Azure data services (Synapse, Data Factory, Data Lake).
• Power BI (semantic models, DAX) and modern BI practices.
• Concepts across OLTP, ETL/ELT, dimensional modeling, and lakehouse patterns.
• Data governance and security practices (classification, RBAC, encryption, change control).
• Critical decision‑making; structured problem solving and trade‑off analysis.
• Clear written and verbal communication tailored to technical and business audiences.
• Cross‑team collaboration; creates value‑added partnerships and working agreements.
• Ability to engage with business stakeholders and develop a pragmatic data roadmap that aligns needs with an evolving technology platform.
• Coach and mentor team members; inspire and motivate without line authority.
• Demonstrated ownership mindset and genuine concern for key stakeholders.

Other

• Priority domains modeled with clear ownership and lineage; stakeholder confidence up; reconciliation effort down.
• BI adoption/performance improves (time‑to‑insight down; refresh reliability up).
• Platform reliability meets SLOs; incident volume decreases; change success rate increases.
• Governance outcomes: access compliance, classification in place, and auditable lineage for priority data products.
• SAFe execution: data enablers planned and delivered in PIs; dependencies resolved early; demos reflect measurable data quality and performance.

Job Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years of experience across data architecture/engineering roles.
• Experience modeling insurance data structures and translating insurance business processes into scalable data solutions preferred.
• Demonstrated experience operating enterprise data platforms on Azure and orchestrating ELT/ETL.
• Hands‑on expertise with SQL performance tuning and enterprise data modeling.
• Experience working in SAFe or scaled agile environments. 

Work Environment and Physical Demands

• Inside climate-controlled office building
• Prolonged sitting and using a PC

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

Department Overview

The Information Technology Department works closely with internal and external business partners using their subject matter expertise to strategically invest in information systems and infrastructure across the enterprise. Flexible and adaptive to customer needs, the IT Team takes a broad view of the HAI Group enterprise; contributing research and development to strengthen and add value to business operations. IT develops its team in both the technical and leadership career paths to support customers while meeting the development needs of the team. Highly responsive, the team continually explores best practices and their application to growing the HAI Group enterprise.
 
 Company Overview

HAI Group®[1], is the nation’s leading property-casualty insurance company founded by and dedicated to affordable housing organizations. While we are recognized as a pioneer of affordable housing insurance programs, insurance is not our only strength. We protect, preserve, and promote the sustainability of affordable housing with an array of products and services that support the challenges housing organizations face. Besides insurance, we offer risk management services, online training, and consulting services used by more than 1,500 housing organizations nationwide. Headquartered in Cheshire, Connecticut, HAI Group® was recognized as a Top Workplace from 2020-2025.
 
 Cultural Objective

HAI Group contributes to a culture that creates a safe and healthy working environment and a space of inclusiveness and belonging for all by: exceeding our customers’ expectations, working collaboratively across the organization, embracing diversity, and demonstrating mutual respect and empathy.

HAI Group Benefits and Perks

• Bonus program eligibility
• Annual merit program
• Outstanding 401(k) program and non-elective contribution
• Flexible work schedules
• Generous paid time off, paid volunteer days and paid holidays
• Medical, vision and dental Insurance 
• Company paid life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability coverage
• HSA, FSA and dependent care options
• On-Site wellness: Full gym and locker rooms, wellness initiatives, outdoor basketball and tennis court, picnic pavilion area
• Tuition reimbursement and loan repayment
• Professional development 
• Community outreach 

HARRG Inc., reserves the right to fill this position at a level above or below the level included in this posting.

HAI Group is an Equal Opportunity Employer

No agency submissions please. Resumes submitted to any HAI Group employee without a current, signed and valid contract in place with the HAI Group Recruiting team for this position will become the property of HAI Group and no agency fees will be paid.