Senior Specialist: Cloud Data Architect at Vodafone Global Enterprise

Role Purpose/Business Unit:

• As the recognized authority in data and analytics architecture, the Solution Architect provides strategic guidance and technical leadership in the design, development, and implementation of enterprise-wide data and analytical solutions.
• This role is pivotal in translating complex business requirements into scalable, secure, and high-performing data architectures that enable advanced analytics, data-driven decision-making, and digital transformation.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Enterprise Data Strategy Alignment – Ensure all data and analytics architecture designs align with the organisation’s enterprise architecture principles, business strategies, and technology roadmap.
• Solution Design Leadership – Lead end‑to‑end design of scalable, secure, and high‑performance data platforms, including data warehouses, data lakes, streaming pipelines, and analytics platforms.
• Stakeholder Collaboration – Partner with business, IT, and analytics leaders to translate complex business requirements into technical architectures and implementation roadmaps.
• Technology Evaluation & Selection – Assess, recommend, and govern the adoption of data management, integration, and analytics technologies based on business needs, scalability, and total cost of ownership.
• Standards & Best Practices – Define and enforce architectural standards, frameworks, and patterns for data modelling, governance, and security.
• Data Governance Enablement – Support and embed data governance policies for data quality, lineage, stewardship, privacy, and compliance with relevant regulations (e.g., GDPR, POPIA).
• Solution Delivery Oversight – Provide architectural guidance throughout the project lifecycle — from proof‑of‑concept to production — ensuring solutions meet non‑functional requirements (performance, reliability, scalability).
• Risk & Issue Management – Identify technical risks, develop mitigation plans, and proactively address architectural challenges.
• Thought Leadership – Keep abreast of emerging trends in data architecture, analytics, cloud, and AI, and translate these into actionable innovation opportunities.

Decision ownership:

• Architectural Direction – Own decisions on the overall design and architectural approach for enterprise data and analytics solutions.
• Technology Standards – Approve and maintain the organization’s data architecture frameworks, standards, and patterns.
• Platform & Tooling Selection – Make final recommendations on the adoption of core data platforms, tools, and analytics technologies.
• Data Integration & Interoperability – Decide on integration patterns, APIs, and data exchange mechanisms to ensure seamless interoperability across systems.
• Security & Compliance Controls –Implement data security measures and controls to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance.
• Solution Approval – Ensure approval for solution designs before implementation to ensure alignment with enterprise and security architecture principles.
• Scalability & Performance Trade‑offs – Weigh cost, time‑to‑market, and long‑term scalability when making architectural choices.

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• Matric essential
• Degree or Diploma in Information Systems / BSc Computer Science / BSc engineering (or similar tertiary qualifications)
• 5+ years in data warehousing, ETL integration
• 7+ years’ experience with all aspects of IT projects from business analysis, architectures, system analysis and design through development, testing, implementation, and production support (SDLC).
• 2+ years leading an architectural development process and collaborate with application development teams, architects and other members of the software development team.
• AWS/GCP Certifications would be advantageous.

Core competencies, knowledge and experience:

• Expert-level proficiency in SQL, including complex query design, performance optimization, data modelling, and integration across cloud platforms and BI tools to support advanced analytics and business decision-making.
• Able to analyse complex use cases to model and interpret data through critical thinking.
• Deep subject matter knowledge of data staging, data lakes, data warehousing, data marts and operational data stores, big data, and analytics as applicable to the telecoms business domain is essential.
• Experience with modern data processing and analytics technologies such as Big Query, Redshift, Teradata, Exadata, Abinitio, Cloudera, etc.
• Demonstrated expertise in implementing and managing IT controls within an analytics environment, including proficiency in ensuring data integrity, system reliability, and compliance with relevant governance frameworks and risk mitigation practices.
• Experience working high-volume data and file processing (real-time and batch processing).

Advantageous

• Big Data knowledge (Hadoop, Map Reduce, Spark, Kafka, etc.)
• Analytics: Python knowledge
• Experience architecting and designing cloud & big data solutions 
• Experience with Analytics production implementations in the Cloud (AWS, GCP)
• Broad understanding of governance best practices for analytics platforms, data warehousing and business intelligence.
• Experience with Data Quality/Data Profiling, Metadata Integration, Master Data Management.

We make an impact by offering:

• Enticing incentive programs and competitive benefit packages
• Retirement funds, risk benefits, and medical aid benefits
• Cell phone and data benefits, advantages fibre connection discounts, and exclusive staff discounts offered in collaboration with partner companies

Closing date for Applications: 16 October 2025.