Lead Data Architect Financial Services
Department: Application Solutions & Engineering
Business Unit: Financial Services (FSI)
Role Title: Lead Data Architect
Location: Singapore
Reporting To: Head of Data & AI Engineering / Chief Architect, Application Solutions
1. Role Overview
The Lead Data Architect defines and governs the data architecture vision, standards, and implementation patterns for mission-critical Financial Services platforms.
This role requires deep technical and regulatory expertise to design secure, scalable, and MAS-compliant data platforms that enable analytics, AI, and regulatory compliance.
2. Key Responsibilities
- Define and maintain enterprise data architecture blueprints for Core Banking, Payments, Risk, and Compliance domains.
- Architect data lakes, data warehouses, and data mesh / data fabric architectures on cloud-native platforms (Azure / AWS / GCP).
- Design real-time data streaming architectures using Kafka, Flink, Debezium, and KSQL.
- Govern data models, metadata, lineage, and master data management (MDM).
- Establish and enforce data governance frameworks (Apache Atlas, Collibra, Purview) integrated with data quality metrics.
- Define data zoning (bronze, silver, gold) and security layer separation aligned with MAS TRM / PDPA / PCI-DSS.
- Partner with platform and AI engineering teams to design AI-ready data architectures including feature stores and vector databases.
- Lead data migration programs (on-prem to cloud) ensuring lineage, compliance, and traceability.
- Provide architecture oversight for regulatory and liquidity data programs (MAS 610/649/1003, Basel III/IV, BCBS 239).
- Mentor data engineers, participate in architecture governance councils, and review designs for scalability and compliance.
3. Required Technical Skills
- Category Tools / Technologies
- Architecture Data Vault 2.0, Data Mesh, Data Fabric, Canonical Modelling
- Cloud Platforms Azure (Synapse, Data Lake, Purview), AWS (Glue, Redshift, Lake Formation), GCP (BigQuery, Data Catalog)
- Data Processing Spark, Databricks, Flink, Kafka Streams, Beam
- Streaming & Integration Kafka, Confluent, KSQL, Debezium, API-based ingestion
- Governance & Quality Collibra, Purview, Apache Atlas, Great Expectations, Monte Carlo
- SecurityRBAC, Encryption, KMS, Tokenization, Audit Trails
- Regulatory Focus MAS TRM, PDPA, Basel III/IV, IFRS 9/17, BCBS 239
4. Experience and Qualifications
- Minimum 12+ years of experience in data architecture and engineering, with 5+ years in BFSI.
- Proven experience leading enterprise-scale data modernization programs across multi-cloud environments.
- Strong expertise in data modelling, governance, and lineage frameworks.
- Hands-on experience in real-time event-driven architectures and AI/ML enablement.
- Excellent understanding of regulatory frameworks (MAS TRM, PDPA, BCBS 239).
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related discipline.
- Certifications preferred: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Data Analytics Specialty, TOGAF Certified Architect.
5. Key Attributes
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills (business + technical).
- Deep understanding of financial systems, data flows, and compliance requirements.
- Ability to balance architecture vision with hands-on technical leadership.
- Proven ability to mentor and build engineering teams aligned to organizational goals.
