Overview
The Frontline Group are looking for a Lead Data Solutions Architect. This great role will allow you to design and build solutions - bringing together products, data platforms, pipelines, orchestration, and applied intelligence in a way that is practical, scalable, and genuinely useful. This is a hands‑on solution architecture role for someone who enjoys designing and building real systems, not operating at arm's length. You will report directly to the Technology Director and work closely with the Head of Engineering & Platform. Engineering owns delivery and runtime behaviour; you own solution design, data architecture, orchestration patterns, and applied intelligence, staying close enough to the build to ensure designs work in practice. As our Lead Data Architect, you will be expected to design, build, and iterate.
Responsibilities
* Designing end‑to‑end data‑led and intelligence‑driven solutions across Frontline’s products, from application data capture through pipelines, orchestration, analytics, and downstream actions.
* Hands‑on design and build of data pipelines, including ingestion, transformation, modelling, and consumption, ensuring data is reliable, well‑structured, and usable in live systems.
* Designing and implementing data orchestration and workflow patterns that coordinate pipelines, services, analytics, and automated actions reliably in production.
* Building and evolving agent‑style, workflow‑driven solutions where data, rules, models, and services work together to automate decisions or guide users inside products, with a strong focus on control, explainability, and robustness.
* Shaping solution designs that bring together applications, data platforms, analytics, orchestration, and integrations, rather than treating intelligence as a separate layer.
* Producing clear, lightweight solution designs that describe data flow, storage choices, analytics patterns, orchestration logic, and integration points, with a focus on simplicity and long‑term maintainability.
* Working directly with modern data platforms, including Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric (or equivalent), and SQL‑based data stores, to prototype, implement, and evolve data and analytics solutions.
* Helping teams make pragmatic design decisions around performance, scalability, reliability, and cost, based on how products are actually used in production.
* Defining and promoting practical data quality, modelling, and orchestration practices, ensuring solutions are trusted and reusable without introducing heavy governance.
* Working closely with engineers and product‑minded teams to translate business problems into buildable pipelines, orchestrations, and intelligent behaviours.
* Designing integration patterns where data and decisions need to flow cleanly between products, supporting platforms, and external systems.
* Supporting other engineers through hands‑on collaboration, review, and problem‑solving, rather than architecture boards or document‑heavy processes.
Technology Environment
* Cloud data warehouses and lakehouse‑style approaches.
* Platforms such as Snowflake and Microsoft Fabric.
* SQL‑based data modelling.
* Orchestrated pipelines and workflows embedded directly into products.
Qualifications & Experience
* Hands‑on experience designing and building modern data architectures, including data warehouse, lakehouse, and end‑to‑end data platform patterns.
* Strong experience with cloud‑based analytical platforms such as Snowflake or equivalent modern data platforms (e.g. Fabric, Databricks), and understanding where they fit within a wider solution.
* Practical experience designing and implementing data pipelines, covering ingestion, transformation, modelling, and consumption using SQL‑first and cloud‑native approaches.
* Experience designing lakehouse‑style architectures, with clear separation between raw, refined, and curated data layers.
* Understanding of data orchestration and workflow patterns, and how pipelines, analytics, and downstream actions are coordinated reliably.
* Experience embedding analytics and data‑driven behaviour into products, not just producing standalone dashboards.
* Familiarity with agentic or workflow‑driven intelligent systems, applied pragmatically within production environments.
* Strong grasp of integration patterns between applications, data platforms, and external systems.
* Comfortable working hands‑on alongside engineers in product‑led teams with end‑to‑end ownership.
Company Profile
Frontline Group is a leading UK retail sales, marketing, and distribution company, with a strong presence in publishing and home entertainment. We partner with iconic magazine publishers such as Radio Times, Good Housekeeping, TV Choice, and many others, and work with major film studios to manage DVD distribution in grocery retail. We also run the book category for retailers such as Morrisons and Waitrose.
Benefits
* 28 days holiday plus bank holidays (pro rata).
* Contributory pension, life assurance, and income protection.
* Learning and development opportunities.
* Executive coaching and mentoring available to all.
* Informal hybrid working.
* Additional leave: volunteering, family‑friendly, and loyalty schemes.
* Wellbeing support, including our Employee Assistance Programme.
* On‑site gym and parking at Stuart House, Peterborough.
* Reward Gateway scheme – Smart Spending App.
* Flexible, salary‑sacrifice options: private medical insurance, car scheme, holiday purchase scheme.
Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of everything we do. We want to make sure that our selection processes are transparent and fair, providing a level playing field for anyone who wants to come and work with us. If you require any adjustments to an interview process, please feel free to get in touch with the Hiring Manager who will be happy to discuss your needs in complete confidence.
#J-18808-Ljbffr