Data Architect

Data Architect
Job Description
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates, hybrid
Employment Type: Full time permanent
Experience: TO CONFIRM
Reporting Line: TO CONFIRM

Job Summary

As the Data Architect at SentraAI, you will design and own our enterprise data platform to enable analytics and AI at scale.

You will define cloud data architecture, ETL patterns and data contracts; success measured by reducing data delivery lead time to under four hours and achieving 99.9% pipeline success.

This role is not a hands-on data science position or the line manager for engineering teams.

About SentraAI

SentraAI is a specialist enterprise AI firm, focused on helping large, regulated organisations move AI and data platforms from experimentation into production safely and sustainably.

We work inside enterprise run-states, where governance, operational risk, change control, and long-term ownership are integral to delivery. Our teams are trusted to design and deliver systems, platforms, and operating models that can be run, audited, and evolved, not just launched.

We prioritise engineering discipline, architectural clarity, and delivery quality over speed theatre or hype.

Key Responsibilities

Platform architecture and delivery
- Design and maintain the enterprise data platform using Databricks and Delta Lake.
- Define ETL patterns and orchestrate pipelines with Airflow and dbt for batch workloads.
- Own data ingestion from S3 and streaming sources using Kafka or Kinesis.
- Set platform capacity, cost controls and security in AWS or Azure cloud accounts.

Data governance and quality
- Establish data contracts, lineage and cataloguing using Collibra or a similar tool.
- Implement automated data quality checks with Great Expectations and monitoring dashboards.
- Manage schema evolution and table design for Delta Lake consumption.

Required Qualifications

Core capabilities
- Architect and operate data platforms on AWS or Azure with Databricks.
- Build reliable ELT pipelines using dbt, Airflow, Python and SQL at scale.
- Design streaming ingestion with Kafka and ensure exactly-once or at-least-once semantics.
- Instrument monitoring and observability for pipelines using Prometheus or Grafana.

Advantageous but Not Mandatory
- Experience with MLOps platforms and feature stores.
- Worked with dbt at scale in production.
- Experience working in regulated financial services or GCC markets.
- Hands-on with cost optimisation for cloud data platforms.

Why Work for SentraAI

Enterprise AI, done properly.
We exist to take AI and data out of experimentation and into production environments that are regulated, scrutinised, and expected to work every day.

Quality is not optional.
SentraAI is built on the belief that engineering discipline, governance by design, and delivery rigour are competitive advantages, not overhead.

Clear ownership and accountability.
You will be trusted with real responsibility, clear mandates, and meaningful outcomes, not diluted roles or performative activity.

Work that survives contact with reality.
We design systems, operating models, and decisions that still stand up months and years after go-live, not just at demo time.

Run-state matters as much as build-state.
We optimise for operability, auditability, and change control from day one, because that is where enterprise value is won or lost.

Substance over hype.
We deliberately avoid delivery theatre, buzzwords, and novelty for novelty sake. Credibility is earned through execution.

Learn from experienced practitioners.
You will work alongside people who have built, broken, fixed, and run enterprise systems, and who care deeply about doing the work properly.

A firm with a point of view.
SentraAI is opinionated by design. We stand for doing fewer things better, and we expect our people to take pride in that standard.