Data Architect: Roles, Skills, and How to Become One in 2024

Don’t you think there is a lot of buzz about data or big data these days? Almost every organization, big or small, leverages the power of data to find useful insights, deploy strategies, make informed decisions, and run business operations smoothly. 52% of the enterprises are actively analyzing data to make operational decisions and make decisions globally while 71% of the organizations believe that their spending on data will increase over the next four years.

With this, several new organizational roles have emerged. One of those is that of a data architect. Data architects implement IT and programming expertise to design data management systems. A data architect is often interchanged with a data analyst or data engineer. But this is not true!

Let us explain to you here the roles and responsibilities of a data architect, the skills of a data architect, and what one needs to become a data architect.

A data architect converts business needs to technical needs. A data architect is an IT professional who formulates organizational data strategy, data quality standards, flow of data, and data security. The IT expert performs the task of defining policies, data models, and procedures to collect, store, manage, and retrieve data.

A data architect is an IT expert who leverages computer science and design skills to review an organization’s data infrastructure, plan databases for the future, and provide solutions for managing heaps of data. Data architects influence an organization’s higher-level decisions related to data and its management that may change its business operations.

A data architect offers strategic requirements, and high-level application designs, and aligns with organizational strategy and goals. A data architect understands business needs, analyses existing data infrastructure, and designs a database for deploying new applications into existing data structures. A data architect defines the procedures for developing, testing, and maintaining a database of an organization.

Data architects are a bridge between IT and the operations of an organization. Business operations collect and implement data for usage while IT acquires, stores, manages, and retrieves information from a huge database structure. The design of the data architecture for storing and managing data is built and developed by a data architect. So, a data architect is mainly a designer and planner.

A data architect considers all data sources related to business operations and designs an outline to centralize, integrate, and maintain data within the company’s data structure. A data architect ensures data security and quick data retrieval whenever required for making decisions.

It is the data architect who ensures that data is secured within the company’s data infrastructure and complies with standards, rules and regulations of the industry. The data architects work in collaboration with engineers to build a robust data architecture for an enterprise.

The role of a data architect is no less than a visionary leader in an organization who plans and designs an appropriate data structure for storing, managing, securing, and managing huge volumes of data. Here is a list of responsibilities of a data architect.

• Designing, developing, and implementing organizational data strategy that aligns with the business processes. The strategy that a data architect follows involves designing data models, formulating database standards, managing data warehouses, and maintaining data analytics systems.
• A data architect is responsible for identifying internal and external data sources to develop an effective data management system that aligns with organizational data strategy.
• A data architect collaborates and coordinates with cross-functional teams like IT and operations, stakeholders, and vendors to ensure the smooth development and functioning of the entire database structure.
• A data architect manages all aspects of a data architecture including the selection of a data platform, the design of a technical architecture, developing an application to test the database structure, and implementing the proposed data structure.
• A data architect utilizes data modeling tools like Studio/ER to visualize, design, and plan a data architecture. Use programming languages like Python to test and troubleshoot data structure applications and systems.
• Data architects have a critical role in application design owing to the relationship between business needs, data, and applications. Data architects interact with team leaders and managers of various departments to ensure a smooth flow of data.
• Data architects work with the CIO to make effective communication regarding line organizational data collection and align with available database applications and databases.
• A data architect is responsible for communicating with data analysts and administrators to understand data infrastructure needs and design databases accordingly.
• A data architect turns high-level data models into specific database models and applications.
• A data architect plans and executes big data solutions and completes a database management cycle using technologies like Hadoop. Documentation of data pipeline processes for metadata and data cases is the responsibility of a data architect.
• Defines and manages data flow and dissemination of information within the organization data structure is managed by a data architect.
• A data architect integrates technical data functionalities that include data accessibility, security, and accuracy. He ensures that the data within the enterprise’s database management complies with regularity and safety standards as well as is secured from potential threats. It is ensured that data is retrieved at any time within minutes.
• A data architect has the responsibility of conducting a continuous audit or performance measurement of database management. It is the data architect who makes necessary changes in the database infrastructure based on the performance or reports to the higher authorities in case of any loopholes.

There are some prerequisite skills that a data architect must possess. Here is a list of some must-have skills for a data architect.

Qualifications to Become a Data Architect

• Years of experience in database administration, systems engineering, and administration. A data architect should understand the basics of the system development life cycle, and design, and test software application development approaches.
• Ability to design and develop data modeling, data flow structures, and data warehouses. A skilled data architect must have sound knowledge of all phases of data modeling from conceptualization to data optimization. This also includes SQL development and database management.
• Possessing research and development strategies for data collection, migration, and retrieval.
• Understanding of data security measures for data systems.

Data Architect Hard Skills

• Expertise in data modeling, database management systems, data warehouses, and data containers.
• Expertise in data modeling and designing tools.
• Skill in carrying data security and compliance processes
• Knowledge of systems development life cycle, project management techniques, design, and testing procedures.
• Knowledge of big data tools, data analysis tools, and techniques.
• Skill in cloud computing technologies and knowledge of DevOps practices.
• Understanding of NLP and text analysis, predictive modeling, and machine learning.

Data Architect Soft Skills

• Critical thinking skills
• Agile methodologies
• Problem-solving skills
• Communication skills

Tools Used by Data Architects

• Amazon RDS
• C
• C++
• ER/Studio
• IBM Db2
• Java
• Microsoft Azure SQL database

The minimum qualification that you require to become a data architect is a bachelor’s degree in either computer engineering, computer science, or a related field. The coursework should cover data management, application design, programming, big data development, database technology architectures, and system analysis.

If you are a fresh graduate who aspires to start a career as a data architect, you can start with internships that offer knowledge and exposure to network management and application design. You can work on skills like data modeling, database management, and data warehouse and gradually progress your career and profile to that of a data architect.

Companies usually prefer a candidate with a Master’s Degree in data architecture with experience of working in data design, management, storage, maintenance, and safety. No single course will teach you all the skills required to be a data architect. So you can always learn relevant skills while you are on the job and take up additional certifications.

The role of a data architect is quite demanding these days. This is because companies are shifting to big data analytics and rely on it for making critical business decisions. Companies gather huge volumes of customer and competitor data to analyze, gain useful information, and form strategies accordingly.

It is the data architect who reviews, plans, designs, and optimizes database infrastructure within a company to ensure data is secure and accessible with the existing applications. A data architect plays a significant role in an enterprise by working in collaboration with data engineers and analysts to develop accurate database systems that align with business requirements. So you must attain the necessary skills and courses to become a data architect in the future.

What is the definition of a data architect?

A data architect is an individual who is responsible for designing, developing, and managing a company’s database that aligns with existing applications and business needs.

What is the difference between a data engineer and a data architect?

A data architect starts a career by playing the role of a data engineer. A data engineer loads data, investigates data storage, and extracts data in such a way that enables data scientists to analyze data and upload machine learning pipelines with data.

After gaining experience, a data engineer may shift to a data architect role who plans and designs data systems. A data architect understands and plays a bigger role in planning and designing a higher-level database infrastructure.

Does a data architect need to know coding?

Yes, data architects should have knowledge and skills in coding. A data architect must have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, computer engineering, and related fields like programming languages and coding.

What software do data architects mostly use?

The core tools that the data architects use are the DBMS platforms. The platforms provide an optimum environment to store, manage, modify, and secure data. They support the processing of data ensuring high accessibility and recoverability that are required for maintaining daily business operations.

Is the role of data architect in demand?

Yes, the role of a data architect is in demand in the market and is predicted to increase with the increasing use of database systems. Data architects utilize and implement their IT and design skills to design, plan, and deploy data solutions into an organization’s database infrastructure that increase customer satisfaction and profits.

So, companies seek to hire professional and experienced data architects in the market and are ready to give a six-figure pay package to them.