Data Architect - Principal

Established in 2021, Independence Pet Holdings is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America.

We believe pet insurance is more than a financial product and build solutions to simplify the pet parenting journey and help improve the well-being of pets. As a leading authority in the pet category, we operate with a full stack of resources, capital, and services to support pet parents. Our multi-brand and omni-channel approach include our own insurance carrier, insurance brands and partner brands.

• Principal Architect – Data, Analytics & Business Intelligence Architecture: This hands-on Data Architect leads significant transformations across all insurance and non-insurance brands, leveraging data, AI, and business intelligence. This transformation will position us as the world's largest pet insurance and pet-health provider.

  
  

  Reporting Structure

  • Reports to: Chief Architect (Head of Architecture)

  • Partners with: Chief Data Officer (CDO) and CDO team

  • Location: Remote/Hybrid – Chicago preferred

• Role Overview

  In close collaboration with the CDO team, this role leads enterprise data architecture and strategy for IPH, driving the architecture and governance of the Unified data platform and enabling advanced analytics and AI/ML capabilities across all Pet Insurance and non-insurance brands.

  It combines data platform, architecture, engineering, data governance, and business intelligence architecture to ensure a unified, secure, and scalable data ecosystem.

  Key Focus Areas: - Building unified Customer Data Platform (CDP) across multiple zones/domains/lines of business - Enabling data monetization through cross-sell and up-sell insights and customer journey analytics - Driving Gen-AI/Agentic AI adoption (agents, skills, RAG) with data as foundation - Handling non-standard data from various sources (pet metadata, third-party data with formatting issues) - Transforming non-insurance data into pet insurance actionable insights and vice versa.

  Key Responsibilities

  1. Calandra Data Platform Architecture (30%)

  • Architect, design, and support / govern the implementation the Azure-based enterprise data platform using cloud-native services

  • Architect a medallion lakehouse (Bronze/Silver/Gold tiers) for structured and unstructured data

  • Enable real-time streaming and batch processing for analytics and operational insights

  • Architect a multi-region, multi-AZ architecture with multiple instances per zone for high availability

  • Ensure unified CDP across multiple zones/domains/lines of business

• 2. Data Governance & Master Data Management (20%)

  • With the CDO team, establish an enterprise data governance framework and implement a data catalog for discovery and lineage

  • Define MDM strategy to ensure a single source of truth for critical data domains (Customer, Product, Policy)

  • Implement data quality monitoring and remediation processes

  • Handle non-standard input data with formatting issues from various sources

• 3. Analytics & BI Architecture (20%)

  • Partner with the CDO / IDEA team in the design of a Customer Data Platform (CDP) for all brands, including enrichment pipelines and analytical models

  • Partner with the CDO / IDEA team as they lead the implementation of self-service BI through Power BI and semantic modeling

  • Define architecture for reporting and advanced analytics capabilities

  • Drive data monetization strategies for cross-sell/up-sell and customer journey insights

• 4. Integration & Standards (15%)

  • Define data integration patterns, pipeline architecture, and API standards

  • Ensure compliance with SOC 2, PCI DSS, and internal security baselines

  • Align with Calandra Toolkit and target architecture standards

• 5. Strategic Leadership (15%)

  • With the CDO team, develop future-state data architecture roadmap aligned with IPH's digital transformation goals

  • Partner with business and technology leaders to drive adoption and maturity of data capabilities

  • Drive organization toward 90% agentic-driven operations through AI/ML adoption

• Data Architecture Process Workflow (Expected Participation)

  As Solution Architect:

  • Define high-level design, scope, and intended outcomes

  • Align to business goals, governance standards, and target architecture (Calandra Toolkit)

  • Hand off requirements to Data Architecture

• As Data Architect:

  • Working hand in hand with the IDEA / CDO team, translate solution into data models, integrations, security, and governance patterns

  • Validate scalability, regulatory, compliance, and long-term roadmap alignment

  • Produce clear technical specs for engineering

• Architecture Review:

  • Conduct "Solution Architecture + Data Architecture" review - In collaboration with the CDO team

  • Support implementation, design, and go-live

  • Performance, security, and governance

  • Reusability and standards compliance

  • Ensure required fixes are addressed before proceeding

• Technical Requirements

  Required Platforms & Tools

  Category

  Technologies

  Data Platforms

  Databricks, Azure Synapse, Microsoft Fabric, MS Cosmos DB

  BI & Analytics

  Power BI, Self-Service BI, Semantic Modeling

  CDP

  Customer Data Platform architecture, enrichment pipelines

  Cloud

  Azure (primary), AWS

  Streaming

  Kafka, Kinesis, Spark Streaming, Real-time pipelines

  Data Governance

  Data Catalog, Lineage, MDM, Quality Frameworks

  Gen-AI & Agentic Requirements (Nice to Have → Becoming Critical)

  Capability

  Description

  Machine Learning

  Model building, deployment, ML pipelines

  Gen-AI Agents & Skills

  Multi-agent pipelines, agentic workflows

  RAG

  Retrieval Augmented Generation for data insights

  Data Monetization

  E2E framework with data as a base, AI on top to deliver customer value

  90% Agentic Driven

  Vision to drive org toward agentic automation

  Client Technology Stack (Familiarity Expected)

  System

  Purpose

  MS Dynamics

  Internal client CRM

  New Portal

  External client portal (in-house, React + MS stack)

  DocGen

  Document generation (MS stack)

  EIS Insurance Platform

  Middle layer - Policy/Group Admin

  Earnix

  3rd party Rating/Pricing engine

  Preferred Qualifications

  • Azure Data Engineer or Solutions Architect Expert certification

  • Experience with Databricks, Synapse, and Microsoft Fabric

  • Strong knowledge of lakehouse patterns, streaming architectures, and data governance frameworks

  • Insurance industry experience is a plus

  • Experience building end-to-end frameworks with data as a foundation and AI on top

  • Hands-on with Data, Gen-AI agents, RAG, and agentic workflows

• Key Success Metrics

  Metric

  Target

  Unified CDP

  Single customer 360 view across all brands/zones

  Data Quality

  95%+ quality scores

  Agentic Automation

  Progress toward 90% agentic-driven operations

  Cross-sell/Up-sell

  Data-driven insights driving revenue

  Compliance

  SOC 2, PCI DSS compliance maintained

  Platform Adoption

  Self-service BI adoption across business units

  
  

All of our jobs come with great benefits including healthcare, parental leave and opportunities for career advancements. Some offerings are dependent upon the location of where you work and can include the following:

• Comprehensive full medical, dental and vision Insurance
• Basic Life Insurance at no cost to the employee
• Company paid short-term and long-term disability
• 12 weeks of 100% paid Parental Leave
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• Retirement savings plan
• Personal Paid Time Off
• Paid holidays and company-wide Wellness Day off
• Paid time off to volunteer at nonprofit organizations
• Pet friendly office environment
• Commuter Benefits
• Group Pet Insurance
• On the job training and skills development
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)