Chief Data Architect - LLNL

Join us and make YOUR mark on the World!

Are you interested in joining some of the brightest talent in the world to strengthen the United States’ security? Come join Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where our employees apply their expertise to create solutions for BIG ideas that make our world a better place.

We are looking for individuals that demonstrate an understanding of working in partnership with team peers, who engage, advocate, and contribute to building an inclusive culture, and provide expertise to solve challenging problems.

Pay Rate

$294,780 - $380,424 Annually

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting.  An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to, specific competencies, relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, seniority, geographic location, performance, and business or organizational needs.

We have an opening for a Chief Data Architect in the Strategic Deterrence (SD) Directorate. This leadership role focuses on ensuring the optimal design, integration, and management of data systems and repositories used throughout the data lifecycle to support mission-critical operations, enhance data accessibility, and drive the adoption of emerging technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics across the organization. SD data is a combination of traditional IT assets, documents, simulation output from HPC systems, experimental data from advanced facilities, manufacturing data from modern production systems, and other sources as needed for the mission – spanning sources of multiple classification levels at the scale of multiple petabytes. You will interact with SD program personnel, high-level internal managers, enterprise partners, external sponsors, Laboratory support organizations, NNSA/DOE and LLNL senior managers. You will also play a critical role in advancing data architecture maturity in support of ongoing institutional and NNSA-driven Digital Transformation initiatives as well as the DOE’s broader data strategy.  This position will report to the SD Associate Deputy Director for Program Enablement which is in the Strategic Deterrence Directorate. 

In this role, you will 

• Develop, lead, and communicate SD's data architecture strategy, aligning it with program priorities, data governance policies, and security standards.  
• Create a roadmap for short- and long-term data architecture that ensures the strategic alignment of data, workflows/processes, and AI/ML initiatives. 
• Architect and implement systems and processes that enable seamless data integration across diverse platforms and sources, ensuring data is accessible, standardized, and relevant to users.  
• Develop enterprise data models that align with industry standards and best practices, ensuring efficient and effective data storage, access, and retrieval.  
• Support data stewardship efforts and cultural change towards a “data as product” environment by providing tools and best practices for metadata management, data quality, and data lifecycle management. 
• Work closely with the cybersecurity team to implement architecture that meets Federal security and privacy regulations, particularly with sensitive data.  
• Serve as a senior advisor to executives and other stakeholders on data architecture matters, building strong partnerships with stakeholders, IT, and data management teams to foster a data-driven culture. 
• Assess existing features of the data ecosystem, and work with SD Applications partners to identify gaps, remove duplicative functions, and streamline the long-term management of SD data. 
• Recognize and support plans to promote and foster a culture of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accountability within the workplace. 
• Perform other duties as assigned. 

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. DOE Q-level security clearance which requires U.S. Citizenship.
• Master’s degree in field related to Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science or equivalent combination of education and related experience. 
• Extensive work experience in data engineering, data infrastructure implementation, and data architecture development in complex data environments including R&D and scientific data. 
• Extensive experience working in a senior management team environment with demonstrated high-level leadership effectively applied across internal and external organizations and constituencies. 
• Successful implementation and adoption of metadata management and data governance across teams, with experience integrating management tools (e.g. Unity Catalog, DataHub). 
• Strong expertise in data management technologies, including data lakes, data warehouses, ETL processes, and big data platforms. 
• Experience designing architectures to support a variety of data types and structures, including structured and unstructured data, and sensitive data. 
• Experience with cloud-based data platforms and services, such as AWS (Amazon Redshift, S3, EMR), Azure (Azure Data Lake, Databricks), or Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Dataflow). 
• Advanced communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to engage and influence stakeholders at all levels, including the highest levels of leadership. 
• Expertise in architecting and maintaining robust and repeatable data models, data infrastructure and platforms that have the scalability, flexibility, and performance to support data pipelines as well as real-time and batch processing requirements for HPC, ML, and AI applications. 

Qualifications that we desire 

• Contributions to open-source projects or community involvement. Experience in architecting solutions for generative and traditional AI models. Direct data science and AI project experience and/or contributions. 
• Involvement in prior Digital Transformation efforts, or other evidence of the ability to influence significant change in enterprise information systems. 
• Awareness of or experience in working with DOE information classification levels and Need-To-Know (NTK) principles. 
• Demonstrated experience implementing plans that promote and value inclusion, diversity, equity and accountability principles in the workplace. 

#PT

Position Information

This is a Career Indefinite position, open to Lab employees and external candidates.

Why Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory?

• Included in 2024 Best Places to Work by Glassdoor!
• Flexible Benefits Package
• 401(k)
• Relocation Assistance
• Education Reimbursement Program
• Flexible schedules (*depending on project needs)
• Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accountability (IDEA) - visit https://www.llnl.gov/diversity
• Our core beliefs - visit https://www.llnl.gov/diversity/our-values 
• Employee engagement - visit https://www.llnl.gov/diversity/employee-engagement

Security Clearance

This position requires a Department of Energy (DOE) Q-level clearance.  If you are selected, we will initiate a Federal background investigation to determine if you meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information or matter. Also, all L or Q cleared employees are subject to random drug testing.  Q-level clearance requires U.S. citizenship. 

Pre-Employment Drug Test

External applicant(s) selected for this position must pass a post-offer, pre-employment drug test. This includes testing for use of marijuana as Federal Law applies to us as a Federal Contractor.

Wireless and Medical Devices

Per the Department of Energy (DOE), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory must meet certain restrictions with the use and/or possession of mobile devices in Limited Areas. Depending on your job duties, you may be required to work in a Limited Area where you are not permitted to have a personal and/or laboratory mobile device in your possession.  This includes, but not limited to cell phones, tablets, fitness devices, wireless headphones, and other Bluetooth/wireless enabled devices.  

If you use a medical device, which pairs with a mobile device, you must still follow the rules concerning the mobile device in individual sections within Limited Areas.  Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities require separate approval. Hearing aids without wireless capabilities or wireless that has been disabled are allowed in Limited Areas, Secure Space and Transit/Buffer Space within buildings.

Pre-Placement Medical Exam

A job related pre-placement medical examination may be required.

How to identify fake job advertisements

Please be aware of recruitment scams where people or entities are misusing the name of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to post fake job advertisements. LLNL never extends an offer without a personal interview and will never charge a fee for joining our company. All current job openings are displayed on the Career Page under “Find Your Job” of our website. If you have encountered a job posting or have been approached with a job offer that you suspect may be fraudulent, we strongly recommend you do not respond.

To learn more about recruitment scams: https://www.llnl.gov/sites/www/files/2023-05/LLNL-Job-Fraud-Statement-Updated-4.26.23.pdf

Equal Employment Opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer that is committed to providing all with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, marital status, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, protected veteran status, age, citizenship, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws.

We invite you to review the Equal Employment Opportunity posters which include EEO is the Law and Pay Transparency Nondiscrimination Provision.

Reasonable Accommodation

Our goal is to create an accessible and inclusive experience for all candidates applying and interviewing at the Laboratory.  If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please use our online form to submit a request. 

California Privacy Notice

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants privacy rights to all California residents. The law also entitles job applicants, employees, and non-employee workers to be notified of what personal information LLNL collects and for what purpose. The Employee Privacy Notice can be accessed here.