Senior Data Architect

Job Title:Senior Data Architect

Location: Bangalore, India

ABOUT UNILEVER:

Be part of the world’s most successful, purpose-led business. Work with brands that are well-loved around the world, that improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We promote innovation, big and small, to make our business win and grow; and we believe in business as a force for good. Unleash your curiosity, challenge ideas and disrupt processes; use your energy to make this happen. Our brilliant business leaders and colleagues provide mentorship and inspiration, so you can be at your best. Every day, nine out of ten Indian households use our products to feel good, look good and get more out of life – giving us a unique opportunity to build a brighter future. Every individual here can bring their purpose to life through their work. Join us and you’ll be surrounded by inspiring leaders and supportive peers. Among them, you’ll channel your purpose, bring fresh ideas to the table, and simply be you. As you work to make a real impact on the business and the world, we’ll work to help you become a better you.

Role Overview:

Senior Data Architect will serve as the key Technical Lead for Data & Analytics. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for designing a unified enterprise data model and architecture across Unilever’s analytics platforms, leading end-to-end data integration between SAP S/4HANA and our cloud Data Foundation (Azure/GCP).

 The Senior Data Architect will also establish robust data governance and quality practices, while providing technical leadership to internal engineering teams and managing external vendors/SI partners. Importantly, this role will manage and mentor a team of data engineers, ensuring delivery excellence, and collaborate cross-functionally with business stakeholders (e.g. process owners, analytics teams) to align data solutions with Unilever’s strategic goals. By shaping the data & analytics technical strategy, the Senior Data Architect will drive broader architectural standards and innovation, ensuring that Unilever’s data platform is future-ready and supports a lean, “single source of truth” across the enterprise

Key Responsibilities:

• Enterprise Data Architecture & Modelling: Define and implement a harmonized enterprise data model across Unilever’s analytics landscape, consolidating data from multiple SAP systems into a single schema.

• Develop the architectural blueprint so that Lean Core ERP processes (standardized S/4 data structures) map seamlessly into the Data Foundation, enabling a “single source of truth” for analytics.

• Create architectural choices and get them aligned with enterprise architecture team to co-create the enterprise architecture and tooling.

• Drive technical integration by partnering with external system integrators and technology vendors (SAP, Microsoft/Azure, Databricks); apply best practices, resolved complex issues, and ensure all deliverables adhere to Unilever’s technical standards.

• Data Integration Leadership:Lead end-to-end data integration between SAP S/4HANA and Unilever’s cloud data platforms. Design and oversee data pipelines (real-time and batch) to ingest SAP data into Azure/GCP data lakes and warehouses.

• Leverage SAP and cloud-native tools (e.g. SAP BTP/Datasphere connectors, Azure Data Factory) to ensure seamless, reliable data flow with minimal latency. Develop data models and engineer solution in SAP BDC.

• Champion new technology and trends and bring them to life from Unilever. Implement POCs and generate technical point of views.

• Lead implementation strategy – design and implement sandbox and testing Env strategy including set up of golden data. Lead the infrastructure sizing and estimation for the project implementation. Play a key role in designing the implementation strategy.

• Define “golden data sets” (authoritative sample data) for testing purposes and use them to validate that the new data model outputs correct results.

• Provide technical guidance on data modelling, data integration, and data lifecycle management. Ensure the solution is performance optimised and can be scaled at Unilever level.

• Develop and maintain reusable data engineering frameworks and code assets to accelerate delivery and ensure consistency.

• Architect and implement robust data platforms to automate ingestion, transformation, and provisioning of data assets.

• Data Governance & Quality Assurance: Establish strong data governance practices across all data pipelines. Implement standards for data quality, metadata management, master data management, and security/privacy compliance.

• Technical Leadership & Team Management: Serve as the technical lead for the D&A workstream, owning the end-to-end solution design for data architecture. Provide hands-on leadership to deliver high-quality, scalable data solutions – breaking down work into sprints, setting technical standards, and reviewing designs/code.

• Manage and mentor a team of data engineers, fostering best practices in data engineering and ensuring internal capability development. Act as the primary technical decision-maker, guiding internal teams and steering external partners to adhere to Unilever’s architecture standards.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to align data architecture with objectives. Partner with program leadership, Global Process Owners, and analytics teams to gather requirements and enable reporting and AI use cases. Act as Unilever’s technical liaison with external vendors/SIs to ensure compliance with standards. Communicate progress, risks, and decisions to senior stakeholders and represent the data workstream in governance forums.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field (strong fundamental knowledge of data architecture and data management).

• Experience:15+ years in data architecture, data engineering, or analytics roles, with significant experience in large-scale SAP data environments. Proven track record of leading complex data integration/migration projects in a global organization (FMCG or similar industry preferred). Hands-on participation in ERP transformation programs (e.g. SAP ECC to S/4HANA migrations) is highly desirable.

• SAP & Data Platform Expertise: Deep understanding of SAP ERP (ECC & S/4HANA) data structures. Experience with SAP Datasphere/Business Data Cloud for next-gen data warehousing is a strong plus. Familiarity with SAP data extraction tools and techniques (e.g. SLT, ODP/CDS views) for moving data out of SAP is expected.

• Cloud Technologies: Hands-on expertise in cloud data platforms – particularly Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud (GCP) ecosystems. Skilled in tools such as Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks/Spark, data lakes (ADLS), as well as GCP equivalents (Dataflow, BigQuery, etc.). Ability to design efficient, large-scale data pipelines and “lakehouse” architectures on cloud infrastructure. Experience in multi-cloud or hybrid data environments is beneficial.

• Exhibit a high level of expertise in the field of data solution architecture.

• Data Engineering & Modeling: Strong proficiency in data engineering (both relational and big data – data lake), SQL, and ETL/ELT pipeline design. Demonstrated experience migrating legacy data warehouses to modern architectures. Ability to optimize data flows and queries for performance at scale.

• Familiarity with building semantic layers or unified data views for business consumption is a plus.

• Governance & Quality: Solid knowledge of data governance and data quality frameworks. Experience implementing data catalog/lineage tools (e.g. Azure Purview, Informatica, or SAP Data Catalog) and ensuring compliance with security/privacy standards in data projects. Understanding of GDPR and data privacy in a global context.

• Leadership & Collaboration: Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills. Ability to translate complex technical topics to non-technical stakeholders and influence decision-making. Prior experience leading technical teams (directly or in a matrix) and collaborating cross-functionally is required. A proactive problem-solver who can navigate ambiguity, adapt to change, and drive consensus in a federated, multi-team environment.

Leadership Competencies (Unilever Values):

• Care Deeply: You foster an inclusive, supportive team environment, show genuine care for colleagues’ development, and are passionate about how data can drive better outcomes for the business and consumers.

• Focus on What Counts: You prioritize high-impact areas and crucial deliverables, ensuring the team concentrates on “fewer, bigger” initiatives that align with business goals. You maintain focus and drive results on what truly matters most.

• Stay Three Steps Ahead: You think strategically and forward-looking. Anticipates future trends, risks, and opportunities in data & technology, and prepare solutions in advance. You embrace innovation and encourage bold ideas to keep Unilever at the forefront of data analytics capabilities.

• Deliver with Excellence: You set high standards for quality and execution, take ownership of outcomes, and instill a culture of accountability. You consistently deliver solutions with efficiency, thoroughness, and speed, turning plans into reality with excellence.

Key Interfaces & Collaboration:

• Work closely with leadership and process owners to ensure data architecture aligns with overall program objectives and transformed business processes.

• Partner with Unilever’s Data Foundation teams (Data Engineering, XOps, Platform teams) to co-create and implement the required data pipelines, models, and infrastructure.

• Collaborate with SAP functional teams (ERP implementation teams) to understand S/4HANA data structures and ensure smooth data handover from the ERP to the Data & Analytics platform.

• Coordinate with external System Integrators and technology vendors (SAP, Microsoft/Azure, Databricks) to guide technical integration work, leverage best practices, and troubleshoot issues. Ensure external partners’ deliverables meet Unilever’s technical standards and requirements.

• Engage with enterprise architecture and data governance stakeholders to align solutions with Unilever’s IT architecture principles, security/privacy guidelines, and data governance policies.

• Interface with business analytics and reporting teams who will consume the data, to verify that the new data environment meets their needs and to support user acceptance testing for reports and analytics post-migration.

At HUL, we believe that every individual irrespective of their race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, nationality, caste, disability or marital status can bring their purpose to life. So apply to us, to unleash your curiosity, challenge ideas and disrupt processes; use your energy to make the world a better place. As you work to make a real impact on the business and the world, we’ll work to help you become a better you!

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