Data Architect (Contract)

Data Architect - GC or USC - 5 days on site - $65-70 p/h Senior Data Architect Experienced Data Architect with a strong background in analyzing, modernizing, and optimizing complex database ecosystems. Skilled in working with legacy and undocumented database environments, identifying underlying business processes from existing schemas and production-like datasets, and translating those findings into scalable, maintainable data architectures. Core Responsibilities • Assess and reverse engineer existing database structures, including tables, indexes, constraints, views, stored procedures, functions, and triggers. • Analyze real-world datasets to uncover entity relationships, business workflows, data dependencies, and usage patterns. • Develop and document logical and physical data models, including current-state and future-state architecture designs. • Review and interpret Java-based applications and services to understand database interaction patterns, object-relational mappings, transaction handling, and schema lifecycle management. • Design and implement optimized data models focused on performance, scalability, maintainability, and data quality. • Improve database efficiency through SQL tuning, execution plan analysis, indexing strategies, partitioning approaches, and storage optimization. • Manage enterprise database environments, including backup and recovery processes, replication, high availability and disaster recovery planning, security controls, monitoring, upgrades, and migration activities. • Produce technical documentation, entity relationship diagrams (ERDs), migration strategies, and architectural recommendations. • Partner with engineering and infrastructure teams to improve application and database performance across the technology stack. Technical Expertise • Data architecture and database design. • Relational modeling, normalization, and schema optimization. • Advanced SQL development and performance tuning. • Reverse engineering of legacy and undocumented systems. • Business logic discovery through schema, data, and application analysis. • Query optimization, indexing strategies, and join performance improvements. • Database administration and operational support. Technology Stack • SQL Server and cloud-hosted database platforms, including AWS RDS for Microsoft SQL Server. • Java ecosystem technologies, including: • Spring and Spring Boot • Hibernate / JPA • JDBC • Service-layer database integrations and transaction management • Schema versioning and deployment automation. • CI/CD workflows and database release processes. • Monitoring, observability, and database performance management tools. Professional Requirements • 5+ years of experience in data architecture, database engineering, or related disciplines. • Demonstrated success modernizing legacy database platforms and improving performance at scale. • Strong analytical and investigative capabilities with the ability to derive business context from technical implementations. • Excellent documentation and communication skills, with experience producing architecture artefacts and technical recommendations.