Data Architect

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is one of the largest school districts in the United States, serving over 320,000 students in 600 schools and employing approximately 40,000 people, most of them teachers. CPS has set ambitious goals to ensure that every student, in every school and every neighborhood, has access to a world-class learning experience that prepares each for success in college, career, and civic life. In order to fulfill this mission, we make three commitments to our students, their families, and all Chicagoans : academic progress, financial stability, and integrity. Six core values are embedded within these commitments - student-centered, whole child, equity, academic excellence, community partnership, and continuous learning.

The Office of Information and Technology Services (ITS) works to build the capacity of schools to use information and technology, digital transformation, maintain network infrastructure, security standards, and support other departments to meet district goals. ITS provides innovative technology solutions that improve the quality of education for students, reduce the administrative burden on educators, facilitate parent interaction, increase community engagement, and support CPS' mission of transparency by focusing on the ease and equity of access to information.

Job Summary :

Under the direction of the Data Solutions Manager, the Data Architect will ensure the district's data architecture is organized, accessible, secure, and meets the needs of business units. This role is responsible for designing warehouses and databases, and defining how data is collected and organized.

The Data Architect will be held accountable for the following responsibilities :

• Define and implement the long-term technology strategy and innovations roadmaps across analytics, data engineering, and data platforms
• Create standards, design patterns, and best practices for ETL development in an enterprise data warehouse environment.
• Oversee the expansion of existing data architecture and data query performance optimization.
• Assist with identifying future state architecture (data fabric, active metadata, Data Lake, Data Lakehouse).
• Perform current state data model assessments / target data models and gap analysis.
• Propose new database architecture and support data migration from an existing Legacy system to a new structure
• Create source-to-target mapping documents to transform the source data into the target warehouse and test final transformations.
• Maintain and create extensions to ODS.
• Assist in designing the data warehouse and ensure that data is stored and maintained in consistent formats.
• Counsel with Analysts and Subject Matter Experts on specific topics in order to accurately capture existing business rules / principles.
• Establish data modeling naming standards, abbreviations, guidelines, and best practices.
• Develop and maintain conceptual, physical, and logical data models.
• Stay current with the latest technologies and trends.
• Other duties as assigned.

In order to be successful and achieve the above responsibilities, the Data Architect must possess the following qualifications :

Education Required :

Experience Required :

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities :

Conditions of Employment

As a condition of employment with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), employees are required to :