Senior / Lead Databricks Architect

Urgent Hiring: Senior/ Lead Databricks Architect | 10+ Years |
Experience Required:
10+ years of overall professional experience, with strong hands-on and architecture-level experience in Databricks, AWS, enterprise data platforms, and large-scale migration programs.
Location Requirement:
Candidates must currently be based in the United States.
Preferred Location:
Indianapolis, Indiana
Candidates who are based in Indianapolis or are willing to work onsite in Indianapolis will be strongly preferred.
If an Indianapolis-based candidate is not available, we are also open to strong candidates working remotely from anywhere within the United States.
This is a contract opportunity with the possibility of renewal based on performance and ongoing project requirements.
Role:
Senior / Lead Databricks Architect
The ideal candidate should have extensive experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale Databricks platforms on AWS, particularly within large and regulated environments.
This is an architecture-focused position. We are specifically looking for someone who has led Databricks platform implementations, defined enterprise architecture and governance standards, and managed complex migration programs. This is not intended for a general Databricks Developer or Data Engineer profile.
Mandatory / Core Requirements:
10+ years of overall professional experience
Proven experience leading multiple Databricks implementations on AWS
Experience working within large enterprise environments
Strong experience operating environments with multiple Databricks workspaces
Ability to define enterprise-level architecture, platform standards, governance frameworks, and migration strategies
Experience establishing Databricks governance, security, workspace, catalog, and data-sharing standards
Experience creating reusable platform accelerators, engineering patterns, reference architectures, and engineering guardrails
Strong expertise in Unity Catalog
Strong expertise in Delta Lake
Enterprise-level data governance experience
Migration Experience:
Candidates should have strong hands-on experience delivering migrations involving:
AWS Glue to Databricks
Aurora PostgreSQL to Databricks
AWS data lake platforms to Databricks Lakehouse environments
Modernization of existing ETL frameworks, pipelines, and operational processes as part of migration programs
Technical Skills:
Databricks Workflows
Apache Spark
PySpark
Declarative Pipelines
Delta Lake
SQL Warehouses
CI/CD
Infrastructure as Code
AWS S3
AWS IAM
AWS networking
AWS security controls
Strongly Preferred:
Governance and Compliance
Experience implementing RBAC and/or ABAC
Strong understanding of enterprise data governance
Experience supporting audit, privacy, security, and compliance requirements
Experience working in regulated enterprise environments
Pharmaceutical / Life Sciences Experience
Previous experience within any of the following will be strongly preferred:
Pharmaceutical
Biotechnology
Healthcare
Other highly regulated industries
Knowledge of GxP and validated systems would be highly valuable.
Nice to Have:
Veeva Vault experience, including exposure to one or more of:
Veeva Safety
Veeva RIM
Veeva Clinical
Veeva QMS
Veeva QualityDocs
Additional Preferred Skills:
CDC architectures
Terraform
GitHub-based deployment frameworks
Data observability solutions
Data mesh / domain-oriented architectures
The strongest candidates will have previously served as a Lead Architect responsible for Databricks platform standards, governance, enterprise architecture, and migration strategy, with direct experience solving AWS Glue and PostgreSQL-to-Databricks migration challenges at enterprise scale.
Employment Type:
Contract
Contract Renewal:
Subject to performance and ongoing project requirements
Work Location:
Indianapolis, Indiana preferred
Remote within the USA may be considered
Important:
Applicants must currently be located in the United States. Candidates based outside the USA will not be considered for this requirement.
Interested candidates can apply through LinkedIn or reach out directly with an updated resume, current location, total years of experience, and relevant Databricks/AWS architecture experience.

Work arrangement
Yes