Principal Specialist, Data Modeling & Arch

Role Overview

Principal Specialist, Data Modeling & Architecture at Ma'aden. This is a senior technical leadership position responsible for designing, modeling, and evolving enterprise data architecture to ensure data products, curated layers, and integration patterns are standardized, scalable, high-quality, and governed.

Role Purpose

Define how diverse operational and corporate data should be modeled, aligned, and transformed to support analytics, enterprise reporting, and integration with downstream systems. Serve as a senior technical authority responsible for defining modeling standards, shaping architecture decisions, and guiding multidisciplinary teams to achieve semantic consistency and reusability across domains while enabling performance, interoperability, and trusted consumption.

Key Responsibilities

Data Modeling & Design

• Develop and maintain conceptual, logical, and physical data models aligned with business domains, using enterprise standards and modeling principles.
• Define canonical models, conformed dimensions, and reference data structures to enable consistent cross-domain reporting and analytics.
• Lead the creation and optimization of data product models and curated layer schemas, including time-variant structures and auditability, to support enterprise use cases.
• Design curated data layers, data products, and integration patterns from source to consumption.

Architecture & Standards

• Ensure models consider platform and technology requirements (relational, non-relational, time-series, streaming) and are optimized for performance and maintainability.
• Establish integration patterns that ensure consistent transformation logic, metadata, lineage, and data quality across source-to-consumption pipelines.
• Define and maintain enterprise modeling standards, guidelines, naming conventions, and reusable templates to uplift modeling maturity across delivery teams.
• Balance governance, usability, and performance in design decisions.

Quality Assurance & Governance

• Review and approve modeling deliverables from internal teams and external vendors; provide design authority and quality assurance for key initiatives.
• Partner with governance to ensure business glossary alignment and stewardship ownership for critical entities and attributes.
• Proficiency with modeling tools and standards; ability to review and assure vendor deliverables.

Leadership & Development

• Mentor modelers, engineers, and analysts; lead model reviews and coaching to ensure consistent application of standards.
• Drive adoption, governance, and continuous improvement across the organization.

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field.
• Master's degree preferred (Data Architecture, Software Engineering, or Analytics).

Experience

• 10–15 years of experience in data modeling, data architecture, or enterprise information architecture.
• Strong experience with cloud-native data platforms and metadata/governance tooling.
• Demonstrated ability to influence architecture across multiple domains.

Skills & Competencies

Technical Skills

• Mastery of conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling.
• Expertise in dimensional modeling and domain-driven design concepts.
• Enterprise architecture and modeling principles.
• Metadata management and lineage concepts.
• Proficiency with modeling tools and standards.

Competencies

• Strategic Thinking & Decision Making – Anticipate implications and guide enterprise direction.
• Collaboration & Influencing – Align diverse stakeholders without direct authority.
• Execution Excellence – Set high standards and ensure measurable outcomes.
• Innovation & Adaptability – Apply modern practices and evolve standards pragmatically.
• Change Leadership – Drive adoption, governance, and continuous improvement.
• Strong design documentation and stakeholder communication skills.