Senior Snowflake Practice Architect - Data Engineering

About the job :

Experience : 12 - 18 Years, with 4+ years hands-on Snowflake. Role Type : Practice architect. Role Summary : We are seeking an experienced Senior Snowflake Architect to drive Snowflake-led transformation initiatives across customers.

This is a strategic practice role requiring close collaboration with customers, sales, pre-sales, partnership, and delivery teams to shape opportunities, build differentiated solutions, support RFPs, and create compelling value propositions.

The role requires strong technical depth combined with the ability to communicate value to business and technical stakeholders.

The ideal candidate should possess deep expertise across the Snowflake ecosystem, including Data Engineering, AI & Cortex, Governance, Data Sharing, Data Products, FinOps, and Modern Data Architecture, while bringing innovative thinking, automation-led approaches, and consultative problem-solving skills.

Key Responsibilities :

• Partner with sales and pre-sales teams on RFPs/RFIs, proactive pitches, and customer workshops - translating business requirements into Snowflake-based architecture and solutions.

• Act as a trusted technical advisor in customer discussions, workshops, and executive briefings.

• Design end-to-end Snowflake solutions spanning data engineering, data sharing, governance, security, and performance optimization.

• Develop/design reusable accelerators, automation frameworks, reference architectures, and solution blueprints.

• Architect and advise on Snowflake Cortex (LLM functions, Cortex Search, Cortex Analyst) and AI/ML use cases on the platform.

• Define and implement data governance frameworks - access control, data masking, row/column level security, data classification, lineage.

• Explore and advise on Snowflake ecosystem capabilities including Snowpark, Streamlit-in-Snowflake, Dynamic Tables, and collaboration features (data sharing, marketplace).

• Build and present proactive value propositions, PoCs, and accelerators to prospective and existing customers.

• Drive thought leadership through POVs, blogs, solution assets, and innovation initiatives.

• Mentor junior architects/engineers and contribute to internal capability building (reusable frameworks, playbooks, accelerators), technical hiring, community engagement, and thought leadership.

• Stay current with Snowflake's evolving roadmap and build differentiated offerings leveraging (Cortex, Horizon governance, AI/ML capabilities).

Required Skills :

• Snowflake Expertise : Strong understanding of end-to-end Snowflake offerings.

• Experience delivering at least 2 end-to-end Snowflake implementations or migrations.

• Strong hands-on experience designing and implementing Snowflake architectures (multi-cluster warehouses, data sharing, Snowpipe, Streams/Tasks, Time Travel).

• Expertise in modern data architectures including Medallion, Data Mesh, Data Products, and Lakehouse with good understanding of cloud platforms.

• Working knowledge of Snowflake Cortex (LLM functions, Cortex Search/Analyst) and applying GenAI/AI use cases on Snowflake.

• Understanding of Agentic AI, RAG architectures, vector databases, and LLM integration patterns.

• Experience with Snowflake governance and security : RBAC, masking policies, row access policies, tagging, Horizon.

• Solid understanding of data modeling (dimensional, Data Vault).

• Experience with ingestion tools such as Fivetran, Informatica, ADF, Qlik Replicate, GoldenGate, or similar would be a value add.

• Pre-sales experience - RFP responses, solution architecture documents, effort estimation, proposal writing.

• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills; comfortable presenting to CXO-level audiences.

• Proactive, consultative mindset - able to identify opportunities and propose solutions without being asked.

• Ability to work with global customers.

• Strong ownership and ability to work independently on ambiguous, fast-moving requirements.

Required Certifications :

• SnowPro Core Certification (mandatory).

• SnowPro Advanced certification (preferred).