Data Architecture Lead

About the role

Deeplight, an AI and data consultancy with strong roots in the UAE's financial services and retail banking sectors, is seeking a Data Architecture Lead to act as the Design Authority for its enterprise data estate across major banking engagements in Dubai. The role covers Retail Banking Group modernizations, mobile banking backends and real-time digital customer journeys, with formal sign-off authority over solution designs and presentations to C-level stakeholders.

Key responsibilities

• Serve as the ultimate design authority for the enterprise data estate, keeping parallel delivery streams aligned and preventing fragmentation.
• Define, document and maintain the target data architecture, data modeling standards and multi-year data roadmaps.
• Establish and lead the Design Authority board, reviewing, challenging and approving all solution designs before build starts.
• Architect high-throughput, low-latency data pipelines and event-driven architectures for real-time mobile banking and personalized digital journeys.
• Review and challenge the architectural content in Steering Committee packs.
• Evaluate cost estimates and Change Requests, run root-cause analysis on technical delays and escalate cross-project trade-offs to the Sponsor.

Required profile

• 10+ years of data architecture experience in top-tier consultancies or major financial institutions.
• Solid background in Retail Banking data solutions and experience with mobile banking apps, high-concurrency microservices or digital customer journey modernizations.
• World-class verbal, written and visual presentation skills, able to explain complex data models to executives.
• Proven ability to present to C-level executives (CTO, CDO, CIO) and defend design choices under scrutiny.
• Ability to assess cloud compute and storage costs, bills of materials and vendor change requests on architectural grounds.

Required skills

• TOGAF certification, or AWS/Azure professional architect or Databricks certified architect certifications (an edge).
• Experience leading data architecture for major banks in the UAE or GCC is an advantage.

What we offer

• Competitive salary.
• Personal health insurance and individual visa sponsorship.
• Professional development, certification support and subscription reimbursement.
• Employee incentive program, career advancement and monthly AI projects.