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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Talend Architect

💰 $140,000 - $190,000

Data ArchitectureData EngineeringITTalend

🎯 Role Definition

As a Talend Architect, you are the strategic mastermind behind our organization's data movement and transformation ecosystem. You will be responsible for designing the blueprint for all data integration processes, ensuring they are efficient, scalable, secure, and aligned with our business objectives. This is a senior-level, hands-on leadership role where you will not only define the technical vision but also mentor a team of talented developers, establish best practices, and drive the adoption of modern data integration patterns. If you are passionate about building high-performance data pipelines and want to make a significant impact on a data-driven enterprise, this is the opportunity for you.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Talend Developer
  • Lead Data Engineer
  • ETL Architect

Advancement To:

  • Enterprise Data Architect
  • Director of Data Engineering
  • Head of Data Platform

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Data Architect (AWS, Azure, GCP)
  • Solutions Architect
  • Business Intelligence (BI) Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Architect, design, and implement enterprise-grade, scalable, and high-performance data integration solutions using the full Talend suite, including Talend Studio and Talend Cloud.
  • Establish and enforce data integration standards, reusable frameworks, best practices, and development guidelines to ensure consistency, quality, and maintainability across all Talend projects.
  • Lead the technical evaluation and selection of data integration technologies and platforms, providing recommendations to senior leadership on the future of our ETL/ELT stack.
  • Design and govern the overall structure of Talend projects, including repository management, version control strategy using Git, and environment configuration (Dev, QA, Prod).
  • Develop and maintain a comprehensive data integration architecture roadmap that aligns with the company's strategic data goals and cloud-first initiatives.
  • Act as the primary technical subject matter expert for all Talend-related initiatives, providing guidance and mentorship to a team of data engineers and Talend developers.
  • Conduct in-depth code reviews, performance tuning, and optimization of complex Talend jobs to minimize execution time and resource consumption.
  • Architect solutions for integrating diverse and complex data sources, including relational databases, NoSQL databases, flat files, APIs, and streaming data feeds.
  • Design and implement robust error handling, data reconciliation, logging, and auditing frameworks within Talend to ensure data integrity and traceability.
  • Lead the installation, configuration, and administration of the Talend infrastructure, including the Talend Administration Center (TAC) and JobServers, both on-premise and in the cloud.
  • Create and maintain detailed technical documentation, including architecture diagrams, data flow diagrams, design specifications, and operational runbooks.
  • Collaborate with data modelers and database administrators to design optimal physical data models for data warehouses, data marts, and data lakes.
  • Implement and manage Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for Talend jobs using tools like Jenkins, Azure DevOps, or GitLab.
  • Architect real-time and near-real-time data integration solutions using Talend's streaming and API service capabilities.
  • Ensure all data integration solutions comply with enterprise security policies, data governance standards, and regulatory requirements like GDPR and CCPA.
  • Design data quality and data profiling jobs using Talend Data Quality to analyze, cleanse, and standardize critical business data.
  • Lead Proof-of-Concept (PoC) projects to explore and validate new features, tools, and architectural patterns within the data integration landscape.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve the most complex and critical production issues related to data pipelines, ensuring minimal downtime and business impact.
  • Partner with business analysts, project managers, and stakeholders to translate complex business requirements into detailed technical designs and architectural blueprints.
  • Drive the migration strategy for legacy ETL jobs to the Talend platform, ensuring a smooth and efficient transition.
  • Develop cost-optimization strategies for cloud-based ETL/ELT processes, focusing on efficient use of compute and storage resources on platforms like AWS, Azure, or Snowflake.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Talend Platform Expertise: Expert-level proficiency in the Talend platform, including Talend Studio, TAC, JobServer, and Talend Cloud services (e.g., Data Integration, Data Quality, API Services).
  • Cloud Data Platforms: Deep, hands-on experience with at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and its native data services (e.g., S3, Redshift, Glue, ADLS, Synapse, BigQuery).
  • Data Warehousing & Modeling: Strong knowledge of data warehousing concepts (Kimball/Inmon methodologies), dimensional modeling, and experience designing and building solutions on platforms like Snowflake, Redshift, or Teradata.
  • Advanced SQL: Mastery of complex SQL, query optimization, and performance tuning across various database systems (Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, etc.).
  • Programming & Scripting: Strong proficiency in Java (essential for creating custom Talend components) and scripting languages like Python or Shell for automation.
  • Big Data Technologies: Experience with big data ecosystems, including Hadoop (HDFS, Hive, Impala) and Spark, and integrating them with Talend Big Data jobs.
  • CI/CD & DevOps: Proven experience implementing CI/CD pipelines for data integration workflows using tools like Git, Jenkins, Maven, and Nexus/Artifactory.
  • API & Web Services: Solid understanding and practical experience in designing and consuming REST and SOAP APIs for real-time data exchange.
  • Data Governance & MDM: Familiarity with data governance principles, data lineage, and experience with Talend's MDM or Data Catalog tools is a significant plus.
  • System Administration: Experience in the administration, installation, and configuration of Talend servers and environments.
  • Performance Tuning: Advanced skills in identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in ETL jobs, databases, and underlying infrastructure.

Soft Skills

  • Strategic Thinking: Ability to see the big picture and design solutions that meet long-term business goals, not just immediate needs.
  • Leadership & Mentorship: Proven ability to lead, mentor, and inspire a team of technical professionals, fostering a culture of excellence and collaboration.
  • Communication & Stakeholder Management: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Problem-Solving: Advanced analytical and critical thinking skills to troubleshoot complex issues and devise innovative solutions.
  • Decision Making: Confidence in making high-impact architectural decisions and the ability to justify them with clear reasoning.
  • Adaptability: Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, evolving technological landscape and quickly learn and adopt new tools and frameworks.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology
  • Data Science
  • Software Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 10+ years of progressive experience in the data management and integration field, with at least 4-5 years in a dedicated architectural or technical lead role.

Preferred:

  • Official Talend certifications (e.g., Talend Data Integration Certified Expert) are highly desirable.
  • Verifiable experience leading a large-scale migration of a legacy ETL platform to Talend Cloud.
  • Demonstrable experience architecting data solutions on a modern cloud data warehouse like Snowflake.
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