Data Program Architect

Ascensus is the leading independent technology and service platform powering savings plans across America, providing products and expertise that help nearly 16 million people save for a better today and tomorrow. ### **Ascensus does not provide visa sponsorship now or in the future and does not hire candidates working under OPT**. The **Data Program Architect** is responsible for defining and driving the architecture vision, strategy, and execution of the enterprise data platform for the Ascensus Government Savings division. This role owns critical architectural decisions across data storage, integration, access patterns, and tooling, and plays a central role in shaping the data platform roadmap in collaboration with product, business, and technology leaders. This is a highly visible leadership position that requires strategic thinking, strong technical judgment, and proactive engagement across the organization. Success in this role depends on the ability to clearly communicate complex data concepts, build trusted relationships, and influence outcomes that align technology with business goals. ## Section 1: Position Summary The Data Program Architect brings a deep understanding of core business domains and data flows, paired with broad technical expertise across Oracle databases, Azure-based data warehouses, ETL and integration platforms, and secure data access patterns. This role ensures the data platform delivers scalable, compliant, and high-quality data in support of critical product initiatives, analytics, and operational needs. Acting as a senior architectural leader, the Data Program Architect collaborates closely with scrum teams, enterprise architects, security, infrastructure, and operations partners to research, design, socialize, and review data solutions. The role establishes reference architectures and best practices, assesses platform health and technical debt, and guides effective, standards-aligned execution across teams. ## Section 2: Job Functions, Essential Duties, and Responsibilities - Define and own the end-to-end data platform architecture for Ascensus Government Savings, including vision, strategy, standards, and execution across operational, analytical, and integration layers, ensuring scalability, regulatory compliance, and secure data access. - Lead architectural design for enterprise data systems, including Oracle-based transactional platforms, Azure-based data warehouses, and downstream analytics and reporting solutions; guide logical and physical database designs to support performance, resiliency, and extensibility. - Own data platform tool and technology selection, including data warehouses, ETL and integration tools (e.g., Informatica), orchestration frameworks, and data access methods; conduct due diligence, assess vendor and cost tradeoffs, and ensure alignment with enterprise and cloud strategies. - Define and govern secure, consistent, and performant data access patterns and APIs, including MCP- or server-based designs, supporting internal applications, analytics users, and approved external consumers. - Provide architectural oversight and execution guidance to data and delivery teams, translating high-level architecture into actionable designs and partnering with engineers to balance standards compliance with timely delivery. - Partner with product, business, and technology leadership to shape the data platform roadmap, ensuring architectural decisions directly support business outcomes, regulatory requirements, analytics needs, and future growth. - Establish and maintain reference architectures and design standards for data ingestion, transformation, storage, access, and governance, enabling reuse, consistency, and reduced technical debt. - Oversee the overall health of the data platform portfolio, including scalability, performance, stability, cost efficiency, risk exposure, and technical debt; collaborate with stakeholders to prioritize remediation and investment initiatives. - Promot…