Director, Data Architecture (AI)

Location: Oxford Nielsen House, United Kingdom; other location: London Wall.

Company

hirify.global is a global information and analytics business supporting science, research, health education, healthcare, and clinical practice through publishing, data, and technology.

What you will do

• Build, lead, and develop a team of data architects across Associate, Architect, and Senior Architect levels.
• Define the target-state data architecture based on data mesh principles, including domain ownership, data as a product, self-serve infrastructure, and federated governance.
• Lead the migration from the centralized data warehouse and operational data store model to a distributed, domain-oriented data product architecture.
• Design standards for data modelling, product design, interoperability, cataloguing, and integration with platforms such as Snowflake.
• Partner with product, platform, governance, engineering, and business leaders to prioritize data products and translate decision-making needs into scalable designs.
• Represent data architecture in senior forums and establish pragmatic technical governance aligned with business outcomes.

Requirements

• Experience leading, building, and mentoring teams of architects or senior technical staff, with a strong interest in people and talent development.
• Experience designing and implementing data architectures in complex enterprise environments, ideally across central and federated models.
• Direct experience with, or strong working knowledge of, data mesh principles and/or migration from a traditional data warehouse/ODS model to a distributed, domain-oriented architecture.
• Strong understanding of data modelling, data integration, data lifecycle, and data platforms such as Snowflake.
• Hands-on experience with technical tooling and code development.
• Knowledge of semantic layers, graphs, ontologies, data governance, master data management, and data quality concepts.
• Experience and curiosity around AI-powered development.
• Ability to translate business needs into clear data designs and measurable business outcomes.
• Strong stakeholder engagement, influencing, strategic thinking, pragmatic decision-making, and experience leading large-scale data-led transformation initiatives.

Culture & Benefits

• Culture focused on innovation, collaboration, and excellence.
• Flexible working hours and support for work-life balance.
• Comprehensive pension plan, generous vacation entitlement, and sabbatical options.
• Home, office, or commuting allowance and a personal choice budget.
• Shared parental, adoption, and family care leave, plus study assistance and wellbeing support.
• Internal communities and networks, employee discounts, an employee assistance program, and recruitment introduction rewards.