Data Operations Architect (Senior Manager)

Huron helps its clients drive growth, enhance performance and sustain leadership in the markets they serve. We collaborate with education organizations to develop strategies and implement solutions that enable the transformative change our clients need to own their future. Together, we empower clients to drive innovation, create sustainable funding streams and deliver better student outcomes. Today, leaders of higher education institutions and academic medical centers are spending too much time reacting to market forces, rather than focusing on the essential priorities that help students, faculty and staff thrive. The most productive path forward requires an intentional approach and innovative thinking, whereby stakeholders across the entire institution rally around a shared vision and embrace the hard work of effecting change. You’ll help our clients to achieve organizational effectiveness, improve student outcomes, implement new technologies and align resources and investments to ensure long-term sustainability. Join our team as the expert you are now and create your future. The Data Operations Architect’s overarching role is translating business and analytical requirements into reliable, scalable, production-grade data solutions. This role focuses on designing, building, deploying, and operating data pipelines, services, and applications that support critical business use cases. You will define technical standards, architectural patterns, and operational practices that engineering teams use to deliver and support data solutions as long-lived services. This includes designing data workflows, APIs, processing logic, and the supporting infrastructure required to operate these solutions at scale. The Data Operations Architect must demonstrate strong software engineering discipline, experience shipping production systems, and a mindset of ownership through the full solution lifecycle. You must be able to communicate architectural approaches clearly, lead implementation efforts, and ensure solutions meet expectations for reliability, performance, and supportability. A strong computer science foundation and the ability to learn and adapt quickly are essential. DATA OPERATIONS ARCHITECT (SENIOR MANAGER) Huron seeks a highly motivated and independent engineer to design and build solutions across its healthcare capabilities. This role will be highly visible to executive leadership and is intended to have a large impact on a diverse consulting organization, implementing technologies that facilitate new AI, automation, and analytics capabilities. The Data Operations Architect’s overarching role is translating business and analytical requirements into reliable, scalable, production-grade data solutions. This role focuses on designing, building, deploying, and operating data pipelines, services, and applications that support critical business use cases. You will define technical standards, architectural patterns, and operational practices that engineering teams use to deliver and support data solutions as long-lived services. This includes designing data workflows, APIs, processing logic, and the supporting infrastructure required to operate these solutions at scale. The Data Operations Architect must demonstrate strong software engineering discipline, experience shipping production systems, and a mindset of ownership through the full solution lifecycle. You must be able to communicate architectural approaches clearly, lead implementation efforts, and ensure solutions meet expectations for reliability, performance, and supportability. A strong computer science foundation and the ability to learn and adapt quickly are essential. RESPONSIBILITIES

• Translate business and analytical requirements into scalable, maintainable data solutions.
• Design and implement data pipelines, services, and applications that are owned and operated by the team.
• Ship production-grade software that enables data ingestion, transformation, validation, and access.
• Design and implement APIs and services that expose data and processing capabilities.
• Define and apply architectural patterns that support reliability, scalability, and ease of operation.
• Own deployment, monitoring, alerting, and ongoing support for team-owned solutions.
• Establish operational practices for incident response, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.
• Design integrations with upstream and downstream systems.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, runbooks, and operational playbooks.
• Provide technical leadership to engineers working on data solutions.
• Collaborate with Product, Engineering, Data Governance, Security, IT, and Client Services stakeholders.
• Evaluate and improve solution performance, cost efficiency, and operational resilience.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, data services, or software engineering roles.
• BA or BS required, preferably in Computer Science, Engineering, or a technology-based discipline.

TRAVEL EXPECTATIONS

• Ability to travel as needed up to 4 times per year.

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Hands-on architect comfortable building, deploying, and supporting production systems.
• Strong software engineering skillset with experience shipping and maintaining services.
• Experience designing and operating data pipelines, APIs, or data-enabled applications.
• Understanding of system reliability, observability, and incident management.
• Familiarity with service-based and API-driven architectures.
• SQL and Python experience.
• Strong computer science fundamentals.
• Familiarity with cloud ecosystems, preferably AWS.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and deployment automation.
• Understanding of data governance, security, and access control concepts.
• Familiarity with traditional application and service design patterns.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience working in Agile or service-oriented teams.
• Strong interpersonal and organizational skills.
• Ability to manage time effectively and balance delivery with operational responsibilities.
• Motivated self-starter with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.

TECHNOLOGIES WE USE Cloud (AWS) / Data Platforms (Snowflake, Apache Iceberg, S3) / Data Processing (Spark, Athena, Glue) / APIs and Services / Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) / RDBMS and NoSQL / Python / SQL / Monitoring and Observability Tools The estimated base salary for this job is $155,000 - $215,000 USD. The range represents a good faith estimate of the range that Huron reasonably expects to pay for this job at the time of the job posting. The actual salary paid to an individual will vary based on multiple factors, including but not limited to specific skills or certifications, years of experience, market changes, and required travel. This job is also eligible to participate in Huron’s annual incentive compensation program, which reflects Huron’s pay for performance philosophy. Inclusive of annual incentive compensation opportunity, the total estimated compensation range for this job is $178,250 - $268,750 USD. The job is also eligible to participate in Huron’s benefit plans which include medical, dental and vision coverage and other wellness programs. The salary range information provided is in accordance with applicable state and local laws regarding salary transparency that are currently in effect and may be implemented in the future. Position Level Senior Manager Country United States of America Apply tot his job Apply To this Job