Solutions Architect

In this role you will own the technical architecture for Burberry’s enterprise data platform, ensuring scalability, security, and cost efficiency. You will shape standards and guardrails, guiding Data Platform Engineers and Data Engineers to implement within a consistent architectural framework. You’ll influence cross-functional squads and partner with governance, security, and data teams to align with the enterprise strategy. You will drive platform evolution, including integration layers and MLOps readiness, enabling self-serve analytics at scale. This is a chance to impact how Burberry ingests, stores, and analyzes data to fuel sustainable luxury and business decisions.

• Design and maintain the platform's technical architecture across compute/storage, ingestion, access control, performance tuning, and capacity planning
• Define and maintain architectural standards and guardrails (naming conventions, environment management, deployment pipelines, partitioning, cost patterns)
• Own platform cost modelling and FinOps governance, including cost allocation and optimisation opportunities
• Ensure alignment with enterprise data architecture and models (working with Data Senior Solution Architect and Data Solution Architects)
• Translate architectural direction into practical engineering guidance for Data Platform Engineers and Data Engineers
• Design data ingestion architecture (batch, micro-batch, streaming) with clear system-to-system boundaries
• Define architecture for semantic layer and self-serve analytics infrastructure
• Provide input to data squads for complex data products and support Data Product Managers and Data Engineers as needed
• Ensure architecture supports emerging requirements (agentic AI data infra, MLOps, advanced analytics)
• Collaborate with Senior Manager, Data Platform Engineering and Senior Manager, Data Engineering to align operations and standards
• Own the data platform roadmap and architecture governance, including SAP BW transition, Databricks maturation, and Datasphere integration decisions
• Contribute to enterprise architecture governance forums and vendor/tooling decisions
• Maintain documentation of decisions, patterns, standards, and trade-offs
• Define non-functional platform standards (resilience, backup/restore, DR, observability, SLAs, auditability, operational readiness)
• Define platform security and privacy architecture with Cyber Security and Data Governance (PII, access recertification, audit logging)
• Establish architecture decision records and design scorecards to govern deviations
• Maintain metrics on adoption, performance, cost, and standards-compliance to guide roadmaps

• Databricks (Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Spark, Databricks SQL) or equivalent lakehouse expertise with admin, cost management, and performance tuning
• Cloud-native architecture principles, cost models, and CI/CD environment strategies
• Proven data security experience (encryption, RBAC, column/row-level security, data masking)
• Deep understanding of ingestion/pipeline architecture for diverse sources
• Experience with SAP data landscapes (BW, Datasphere, S/4HANA data flows) is highly desirable
• Ability to define architectural standards and guide engineering teams without hands-on delivery
• Experience in centralized architecture functions partnering with delivery squads
• Clear communication of architectural decisions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience in environments transitioning from outsourced to in-house ownership
• Experience defining non-functional requirements for resilience, observability, DR, data lifecycle management, and operational readiness
• Experience using architecture decision records, design authorities, and governance measures

• communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• ability to influence and guide delivery teams
• conceptual and strategic thinking
• Databricks platform and Unity Catalog
• Delta Lake
• Spark