Director of Data Architecture

Summary

Join WRS Health as the Director of Data Architecture, leading data platform initiatives on AWS with a focus on healthcare data, data lake strategy, and AI enablement. You will architect and manage scalable, secure, and high-performance data systems supporting traditional analytics and modern ML workloads. Responsibilities include defining and implementing an enterprise-wide data architecture strategy, leading the evolution of the AWS-based data lake architecture, and optimizing data storage and retrieval. You will also collaborate with data science teams on embedding models and vectorization, ensure data security and compliance, and build a high-performing team. The ideal candidate possesses a Bachelor's or Master's degree in a related field, 8-12+ years of data architecture experience (3-5+ years in a leadership role), and expertise in AWS, healthcare data standards (FHIR, HL7), and data security. This is a full-time, remote independent contractor position.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field
• 8–12+ years of experience in data architecture with 3–5 years in a technical leadership role
• Proven experience architecting AWS-based data lakes and analytics pipelines
• Deep understanding of healthcare data standards (FHIR, HL7) and working with FHIR JSON objects in large-scale systems
• Expertise with embedding and vectorization models, semantic search, and managing vector storage solutions
• Hands-on experience with Amazon S3, Mountpoint for S3, and optimizing S3-based workloads for performance and cost
• Strong background in data security, encryption, access control, and compliance frameworks (HIPAA, HITRUST)

Responsibilities

• Define and implement an enterprise-wide data architecture strategy that supports interoperability, AI /ML readiness, and regulatory compliance
• Lead the evolution of our AWS-based data lake architecture, supporting structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data types—especially FHIR-formatted JSON healthcare data
• Design and maintain scalable, secure, and cost-effective data lakes using Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Athena, Redshift, and Lake Formation
• Leverage Mountpoint for S3 to enable high-performance, POSIX-compliant access to S3 objects, including vectorized data files
• Optimize data storage and retrieval strategies for performance and cost-efficiency, including partitioning, file formats (e.g., Parquet, ORC), and compression techniques
• Collaborate with data science teams to implement embedding models, vectorization pipelines, and real-time inference architectures
• Design and manage vector storage systems (e.g., S3-based, FAISS, Pinecone, or Amazon OpenSearch) to support semantic search, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and intelligent data access
• Ensure vectorized data pipelines are aligned with model training, evaluation, and deployment strategies
• Architect systems to ingest, process, and store FHIR-compliant JSON data from EHRs, APIs, and HL7 sources
• Ensure conformance with healthcare interoperability standards and optimize for queryability and downstream analytics
• Implement data normalization and enrichment pipelines for use in both clinical and operational contexts
• Lead efforts to ensure data security at rest and in transit using AWS-native encryption, IAM, VPC controls, and bucket policies
• Implement and manage data access controls, audit logging, and role-based security models across AWS environments
• Oversee data governance including lineage, cataloging, and stewardship with tools such as AWS Glue Data Catalog, Lake Formation, or third-party platforms
• Build and lead a high-performing team of data architects and engineers
• Work closely with stakeholders from engineering, data science, product, and compliance teams to deliver data initiatives
• Promote data literacy and foster a culture of innovation and continuous improvement

Preferred Qualifications

• AWS certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Big Data or Data Analytics – Specialty)
• Familiarity with open-source vector databases (e.g., FAISS, Weaviate) and MLOps pipelines
• Experience in clinical systems integration, claims processing, or population health analytics

Benefits

• Remote work
• Full-time