Senior Snowflake Architect

About Ascendion Engineering

Ascendion Engineering Private Limited is an Indian private company delivering cutting-edge engineering and technology solutions aligned with business and industry demands. The firm promotes a professional culture centered on continuous learning, collaboration, and career advancement.

Role Overview and Responsibilities

• Design and oversee the full lifecycle of enterprise-level Snowflake architectures for migration and modernization projects, covering landing zones, role-based access control (RBAC), data sharing, and multi-account frameworks.
• Lead evaluations of existing legacy environments such as Teradata, Oracle, Netezza, SQL Server, and Hadoop; develop workload heat maps and phased migration plans.
• Determine suitable migration approaches (lift-and-shift, re-platforming, re-engineering) tailored to each workload based on total cost of ownership (TCO), risk assessment, and business benefits.
• Architect ELT workflows in Snowflake using dbt or similar transformation tools, ensuring solid project structure, layered modeling (staging, intermediate, marts), rigorous testing, comprehensive documentation, and continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD).
• Create ingestion and transformation systems using Snowpark, Streams & Tasks, Dynamic Tables, and Snowpipe for varying data modes including batch, micro-batch, and streaming.
• Lead and mentor delivery teams of 6-20 engineers specializing in data engineering, SQL conversions, ELT modeling, testing, and DevOps processes.
• Automate SQL conversion, data validation, and reconciliation using Snowflake-native tools and accelerators such as SnowConvert, Bladebridge, or Datametica.
• Conduct architecture and code assessments; uphold engineering quality standards, enforce naming conventions, and promote reusable patterns in ELT projects.
• Manage production cutover activities including rollback plans and hypercare support to guarantee zero data loss and minimal operational disruption.
• Support pre-sales activities by leading solution workshops, preparing RFP responses, cost estimates, and Statement of Work (SOW) documents for qualified Snowflake opportunities.

Essential Qualifications

• 8 to 12 years of professional experience in data warehousing, data engineering, or platform architecture, with a minimum of 4 years delivering Snowflake solutions hands-on.
• Proven leadership in at least two full-scale enterprise migrations from legacy MPP/EDW platforms such as Teradata, Netezza, Exadata, SQL Server, or Hadoop to Snowflake.
• In-depth proficiency with Snowflake features including virtual warehouses, RBAC, resource monitors, micro-partitioning, clustering, query profile analysis, time travel, zero-copy cloning, secure data sharing, replication, and failover techniques.
• Strong SQL expertise and practical Python skills; production usage of Snowpark, Airflow, and at least one cloud-native ingestion solution (e.g., Fivetran, Matillion, Informatica IDMC, Azure Data Factory, AWS Glue).
• Hands-on cloud architecture experience involving either AWS, Azure, or GCP, covering IAM, networking (including PrivateLink), storage, and security key management integration with Snowflake.
• Comprehensive understanding of data governance frameworks including masking policies, row access controls, tagging, object dependencies, and connectors with platforms like Collibra, Alation, or Atlan.
• Expertise in FinOps including designing cost-efficient Snowflake setups through warehouse sizing, workload isolation, query optimization, and usage-based chargeback mechanisms.
• Excellent consulting capabilities spanning written and oral communication, engagement with senior client executives, and preparation of professional SOWs, estimates, and architecture documents.
• Mandatory: SnowPro Core certification.

Preferred Additional Skills

• SnowPro Advanced Architect certification.
• Hands-on experience with dbt Core or dbt Cloud on Snowflake, covering model layering, macros, testing, snapshots, and CI/CD; or equivalent proficiency with alternative ELT platforms such as Coalesce, Matillion, or Informatica IDMC.
• Familiarity with Snowflake Cortex features for GenAI applications including LLM functions, Cortex Search, and Cortex Analyst.
• Experience with Apache Iceberg or similar open-table-format interoperability technologies.
• Exposure to streaming technologies like Kafka, Kinesis, Snowpipe Streaming, or Snowflake Dynamic Tables.
• Industry experience in one or more of Banking & Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Retail & Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), or Manufacturing sectors.
• Previous tenure at a Snowflake Premier or Elite Partner firm is advantageous.