Vice President of Enterprise Data Products & Data Architecture

Vice President of Enterprise Data Products & Data Architecture

We are looking for a VP of Solutions & Data Architecture to own the vision, standards, and roadmap that connect Compass’ business strategy to scalable, well-governed data products. This leader will drive architectural decisions across application, integration, and data domains — ensuring our platforms are secure, performant, and built to support the company's growth. This is a hands-on leadership role: part strategist, part technologist, part people manager, and a key partner to Engineering, Product, and Data/Analytics leadership.

What You'll Do

• Define and own the enterprise data product and architecture strategy, aligning technology decisions with business objectives and long-term scalability.
• Establish architecture standards, frameworks, and governance processes (design reviews, architecture decision records, technology radar) across engineering teams.
• Lead the design of complex, cross-system solutions — including integration patterns, API strategy, cloud infrastructure, and data platform architecture (data lakes/warehouses, pipelines, master data management).
• Partner with executive leadership to shape the multi-year technology roadmap, including build-vs-buy decisions and vendor/platform evaluations.
• Provide technical leadership on data strategy: data modeling, data quality, data governance, privacy/compliance (e.g., SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA as applicable), and analytics/ML enablement.
• Build, mentor, and scale a team of solutions and data architects; set career development paths and technical growth plans.
• Act as the primary escalation point for architectural risk, technical debt, and cross-team design conflicts.
• Evaluate emerging technologies (cloud services, AI/ML platforms, data tooling) and make recommendations on adoption.
• Ensure architecture decisions account for security, scalability, cost efficiency, and maintainability.
• Communicate architectural vision and trade-offs clearly to both technical teams and non-technical executive stakeholders.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years in software/data engineering roles, with 5+ years in an architecture leadership capacity (Enterprise Architect, Principal Architect, Director/VP of Architecture, or similar).
• Proven experience architecting both solutions (application/integration/systems design) and data (warehousing, pipelines, data modeling, governance) at scale.
• Deep knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP), microservices/API architecture, and modern data stack tools (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, dbt, Kafka, Airflow).
• Track record of building and leading high-performing architecture or engineering teams.
• Strong stakeholder management skills — comfortable presenting to C-suite and translating technical concepts for business audiences.
• Experience establishing architecture governance and design standards in a growing or matrixed organization.
• Familiarity with AI/ML infrastructure and MLOps practices.
• Relevant certifications (TOGAF, AWS/Azure/GCP Solutions Architect, etc.).
• Experience leading digital transformation or major platform modernization initiatives.
• A clear, adopted data product and supporting architecture roadmap with measurable reduction in technical debt and system fragmentation.
• A scalable, governed data platform that reliably supports analytics, reporting, and (where applicable) ML use cases.
• An engaged, growing architecture team with clear standards and low attrition.
• Strong cross-functional trust — Product and Engineering see Architecture as an enabler, not a bottleneck.