Principal Data Architect

Overview
Position Summary:

Mercury Insurance is seeking a Principal Data Architect to lead the strategy, design, and evolution of our enterprise data ecosystem. This leader will partner closely with Engineering, Data Science, and business teams to define and execute a scalable data architecture that supports analytics, operational reporting, and data-driven product capabilities.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role that blends deep data architecture expertise, architectural thinking, and cross-functional influence. The Principal Data Architect will own the long-term direction for enterprise data models, pipelines, and platform standards while guiding teams responsible for delivering reliable, governed, and high-performing data solutions. This role is accountable for building a modern data foundation that is scalable, secure, and aligned to real business needs across Mercury.

Geo-Salary Information

An in-person interview may be required during the hiring process

 

State specific pay scales for this role are as follows:

$XX to $XX (NJ, NY, WA, HI, AK, MD, CT, RI, MA)

$XX to $XX (NV, OR, AZ, CO, WY, TX, ND, MN, MO, IL, WI, FL, GA, MI, OH, VA, PA, DE, VT, NH, ME)

$XX to $XX (UT, ID, MT, NM, SD, NE, KS, OK, IA, AR, LA, MS, AL, TN, KY, IN, SC, NC, WV)

 

In CA: Typical hiring range is $XX to $XX

 

The expected base salary for this position will vary depending on a number of factors, including relevant experience, skills and location.

Responsibilities
Essential Job Functions:

 Enterprise data strategy and architecture

Define and lead the enterprise data architecture strategy, target state, and multi-year roadmap for Mercury’s data platform

Establish reference architectures, standards, and guardrails for data ingestion, transformation, modeling, orchestration, quality, observability, and consumption

Drive architecture decisions for enterprise data platforms, including EDW, lakehouse, streaming, operational data integration, and domain-oriented data products

Partner with senior Technology and business leaders to align data investments to enterprise priorities, business value, and long-term scalability

Evaluate current-state architecture, identify gaps, and lead rationalization of tools, patterns, and technical debt across the data ecosystem

Technical leadership and architecture enablement

Provide technical direction and architectural leadership to data engineering, analytics engineering, and platform teams

Set standards for design quality, model integrity, operational excellence, and scalable delivery across the Enterprise Data & Operations function

Mentor engineers and technical leaders in architectural thinking, modern engineering practices, and delivery excellence

Build an automation-first culture focused on reliability, repeatability, maintainability, and continuous improvement

Raise the bar on technical quality, design rigor, and execution across the data engineering organization

Platform and solution delivery

Design, develop, and oversee end-to-end enterprise data solutions supporting multiple data domains, data marts, and analytics use cases

Guide the design and modernization of foundational enterprise data models, including decisions around grain, entities, relationships, conformed dimensions, and slowly changing dimensions

Ensure scalable batch and streaming data pipelines are built to support both enterprise reporting and advanced analytics environments

Drive implementation of layered data architecture patterns, including Bronze/Silver/Gold or equivalent logical data zones

Partner with Engineering teams to productionize data pipelines with strong performance, resiliency, and operational supportability

Data reliability, governance, and operational excellence

Own the reliability, quality, consistency, and observability of Mercury’s core data assets and pipelines

Establish and enforce data quality frameworks, automated testing, lineage, monitoring, alerting, and recovery processes

Define service levels and operational standards for critical data products and pipelines

Reduce manual processes and technical debt through standardization, automation, and disciplined platform engineering

Partner with security, compliance, and governance stakeholders to ensure data architecture aligns with enterprise risk and control requirements

Cross-functional influence and innovation

Translate business problems into scalable data products, architecture patterns, and prioritized roadmaps

Partner across Product, Engineering, Data Science, Analytics, and business teams to ensure the data platform enables real business outcomes

Lead proof of concepts, architecture reviews, and technology evaluations for new tools and capabilities

Influence vendor selection, platform direction, and engineering standards through fact-based analysis and practical technical leadership

Identify opportunities to apply GenAI and LLM capabilities to improve engineering productivity, data operations, governance, and insight generation

Qualifications

Education:

 

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field; Master’s degree preferred

Experience:

12+ years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, or enterprise data platform leadership

5-10 years of experience leading, mentoring, and growing high-performing data engineering or analytics engineering teams

 

Knowledge and Skills:

Proven experience defining enterprise data strategy and leading large-scale modernization of data pipelines, platforms, and models

Deep expertise in enterprise data modeling, including 3NF, dimensional, star, and snowflake patterns, with strong judgment on how to model real-world business processes

Strong experience redesigning foundational data models and pipelines with a focus on scalability, usability, and reliability

Expert-level SQL and Python skills, with strong production experience in Informatica and dbt, including models, testing, and package management

Experience with orchestration frameworks such as Airflow, Dagster, Tivoli, or similar tools

Familiarity with streaming and event-driven data technologies such as Kafka or comparable platforms

Hands-on experience with modern warehouse and lakehouse platforms such as Snowflake, Databricks, Redshift, or BigQuery

Strong understanding of cloud-native engineering practices across AWS, GCP, or Azure

Demonstrated commitment to engineering best practices, including Git, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, testing, and DRY design principles

Experience implementing data quality, observability, lineage, and operational controls in production environments

Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to influence technical and non-technical leaders

Data product mindset with the ability to turn business needs into architecture, roadmaps, and execution plans

Experience in insurance, SaaS, or marketplace environments is a plus

Experience leveraging GenAI or LLM platforms such as OpenAI, Claude, or Gemini to solve meaningful business and engineering problems is strongly preferred

About the Company

Why choose a career at Mercury?

At Mercury, we have been guided by our purpose to help people reduce risk and overcome unexpected events for more than 60 years. We are one team with a common goal to help others. Everyone needs insurance and we can’t imagine a world without it.

Our team will encourage you to grow, make time to have fun, and work together to make great things happen. We embrace the strengths and values of each team member. We believe in having diverse perspectives where everyone is included, to serve customers from all walks of life.

We care about our people, and we mean it. We reward our talented professionals with a competitive salary, bonus potential, and a variety of benefits to help our team members reach their health, retirement, and professional goals.

 

Learn more about us here: https://www.mercuryinsurance.com/about/careers

Perks and Benefits

We offer many great benefits, including:

Competitive compensation

Flexibility to work from anywhere in the United States for most positions

Paid time off (vacation time, sick time, 9 paid Company holidays, volunteer hours)

Incentive bonus programs (potential for holiday bonus, referral bonus, and performance-based bonus)

Medical, dental, vision, life, and pet insurance

401 (k) retirement savings plan with company match

Engaging work environment

Promotional opportunities

Education assistance

Professional and personal development opportunities

Company recognition program

Health and wellbeing resources, including free mental wellbeing therapy/coaching sessions, child and eldercare resources, and more

Mercury Insurance is an equal opportunity employer.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

Pay Range
USD $107,344.71 - USD $300,603.92 /Yr.