Principal Data Architect - AI

Principal Data Architect About the Role Reporting to the Vice President of Data, the Principal Data Architect is the senior technical authority for how data is modeled, integrated, governed, and consumed across MeridianLink. You will design our enterprise data architecture end-to-end — from source-system ingestion through our Azure Databricks lakehouse and into the analytical, operational, and customer-facing data products our business depends on. This is a hands-on role. You will not only define the meta-models, conceptual models, logical models, and physical schemas that govern our data — you will build them, prove them out in code, partner closely with data engineers as they implement them, and evolve them as the business grows. The right candidate has done this before in a FinTech SaaS environment and understands the trade-offs that come with multi-tenant data, regulated workloads, and customer-facing analytics. What You Will Do • Define the enterprise data architecture: Own the conceptual, logical, and physical data models for MeridianLink's analytical and operational data platform, including source-aligned, integrated, and consumption-ready layers. • Build the meta-model: Design and maintain a meta-model that captures entities, relationships, business definitions, ownership, lineage, sensitivity classifications, and SLAs — and make sure it is wired into our tooling, not...