{"id":3673758,"url":"https://alion.io/job/elsevier-director-data-architecture","title":"Director, Data Architecture","company":{"id":3090,"name":"Elsevier","domain":"elsevier.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/elsevier","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":79,"open_postings":24,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.833,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":26,"computed_at":"2026-11-03T05:54:40Z"}},"role":"Leadership","role_family":"Leadership","seniority":"head","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["London, United Kingdom"],"countries":["GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Master Data Management","optional":false},{"name":"Snowflake","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-03T10:07:20Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-03","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T03:05:58Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Director, Data Architecture\nDo you want to lead the shift to a product-based data architecture and design the Data foundations of our AI-enabled data estate - and build the team that makes it happen?\nDo you thrive on combining people leadership with hands-on architectural direction to solve complex data challenges? \nAbout the team:\nDigital Business Solutions (DBS) is a global technology team of 400 FTE and 300 partner staff, supporting stakeholders across Elsevier and RELX. DBS forms part of Elsevier’s global Technology function and is the enterprise delivery arm across Elsevier. We provide a wide range of business-critical services across over 250 applications, from Sales and Marketing Technology to eCommerce solutions, from financial system management to Content Publishing Systems.\nThe group includes non-technology functions such as Product Management and a Portfolio Programme Management Office. Within DBS, the Architecture function sets technical direction across our products and platforms, partnering with the business to translate strategy into scalable, secure, and high-performing solutions.\nWe are moving from a traditional, centralized data warehouse and operational data store model to a data mesh paradigm, decentralizing ownership of data to the domains that know it best, treating data as a product, and building the self-serve platform and federated governance that make that possible. This is one of the most significant architectural shifts in our history, and it needs a leader who can define it, build support for it, and build the team to oversee the delivery.\nAbout the role:\nReporting to the Senior Director of Architecture, the Director of Architecture: Data is a new leadership role responsible for defining and executing our data architecture vision, and for building and leading a team of data architects (Associate Architect, Architect and Senior Architect) to deliver it.\nThis role combines people leadership, strategic architectural direction, and hands-on technical oversight. You will be the primary architect and champion of our data mesh transition, guiding the migration away from our current data warehouse and ODS model toward a distributed, domain-oriented architecture with clear data products, interoperable standards, and federated governance.\nYou will foster architectural excellence through mentorship, talent development, and clear technical governance. You will help your team balance innovation with pragmatism, align technical decisions with business outcomes, and maintain consistent architecture practices across our product lines.\nSuccess in this role depends on building strong working relationships across the leadership team, particularly with the Senior Director of Data Products, the Head of Data Platform and the Head of Data Governance. The first strategic aim will be ensuring the transition to data mesh is well aligned, jointly owned, and sustained across product, platform, and governance boundaries.\nKey responsibilities:\nBuild, lead, and grow a team of data architects, providing mentorship, technical direction, and career development. \nDefine and own the target-state data architecture for the team, establishing data mesh principles including domain-oriented ownership, data as a product, self-serve data infrastructure, and federated computational governance as the standard operating model. \nCollaborate with key stakeholders to identify and prioritize the most valuable data products and outcomes. \nLead the strategy and execution for migrating away from the current centralized data warehouse and operational data store model toward a distributed, data product-based architecture. \nEnsure data domains and assets are clearly structured, connected and aligned across the organisation, avoiding duplication, conflicting definitions, and siloed solutions. \nPartner with business stakeholders to understand decision-making needs and translate these into scalable, outcome-driven data domain designs. \nWork closely with engineering and platform teams to guide implementation, ensuring alignment with enterprise platforms (e.g. Snowflake), integration patterns, and data cataloguing requirements. \nEstablish and promote standards for data modelling, data product design, and interoperability, enabling consistency across federated domain teams while supporting flexibility where needed. \nSet clear technical governance for the architecture team, ensuring decisions balance innovation with pragmatism and align with business outcomes. \nContribute to and help shape our data strategy and roadmap, embedding architectural considerations that support long-term scalability and value. \nRepresent data architecture in senior technology and business forums, building alignment and buy-in for the data mesh transition. \nRequirements:\nProven experience leading, building and mentoring a team of architects or senior technical staff, with a genuine interest in developing people and talent. \nThe experience and confidence to be able to make decisions and act without exhaustive analysis, then to learn, rethink, and pivot if required. \nExperience designing and implementing data architectures in complex, enterprise environments, ideally with a mix of central and federated models. \nDirect experience with, or strong working knowledge of, data mesh principles and/or leading a migration from a traditional data warehouse/ODS model to a distributed, domain-oriented architecture. \nStrong understanding of data modelling, data integration, data lifecycle, and data platforms (e.g. Snowflake), with the ability to engage effectively with technical teams. \nHands on experience with technical tooling and code development experience \nKnowledge of semantic layers, graphs, and ontologies \nExperience and curiosity around AI-powered development. \nAbility to translate business needs into clear data design, with a focus on enabling decision-making and delivering measurable business outcomes. \nExperience with data governance, master data management, and data quality concepts, and how these are enabled through architecture. \nStrong stakeholder engagement and influencing skills, with the ability to work across business and technology teams and drive alignment in a matrix environment. \nAbility to balance strategic thinking with pragmatic delivery, ensuring solutions are both scalable and achievable. \nExperience leading large-scale data-led transformation initiatives. \nWhy join us?\nJoin our team and contribute to a culture of innovation, collaboration, and excellence. If you are ready to advance your career and make a significant impact, we encourage you to apply.\nWork in a way that works for you\nWe promote a healthy work/life balance across the organization. We offer an appealing working prospect for our people. With numerous wellbeing initiatives, shared parental leave, study assistance and sabbaticals, we will help you meet your immediate responsibilities and your long-term goals.\nWorking flexible hours - flexing the times when you work in the day to help you fit everything in and work when you are the most productive. \nWorking for you\nWe know that your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. These are some of the benefits we are delighted to offer:\nComprehensive Pension Plan \nHome, office, or commuting allowance. \nGenerous vacation entitlement and option for sabbatical leave \nMaternity, Paternity, Adoption and Family Care leave \nFlexible working hours \nPersonal Choice budget \nInternal communities and networks \nVarious employee discounts \nRecruitment introduction reward \nEmployee Assistance Program (global) \nAbout the business -\nA global leader in information and analytics, we help researchers and healthcare professionals advance science and improve health outcomes for the benefit of society. Building on our publishing heritage, we combine quality information and vast data sets with analytics to support visionary science and research, health education and interactive learning, as well as exceptional healthcare and clinical practice. At Elsevier, your work contributes to the world’s grand challenges and a more sustainable future. We harness innovative technologies to support science and healthcare to partner for a better world.\n\nWe know your well-being and happiness are key to a long and successful career. We are delighted to offer country specific benefits. Clickhereto access benefits specific to your location.\nWe are committed to providing a fair and accessible hiring process. If you have a disability or other need that requires accommodation or adjustment, please let us know by completing our Applicant Request Support Form or please contact 1-855-833-5120.\nCriminals may pose as recruiters asking for money or personal information. We never request money or banking details from job applicants. Learn more about spotting and avoiding scamshere.\nPlease read our Candidate Privacy Policy.\nWe are an equal opportunity employer: qualified applicants are considered for and treated during employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship status, disability status, protected veteran status, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.\nUSA Job Seekers:\nEEO Know Your Rights.","description_format":"text","description_chars":9333,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Flexible schedule","Generous vacation","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Publishing","Clinical Decision Support","Scientific & Lab Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-03T10:07:20Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":26,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T04:41:31Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/elsevier-director-data-architecture","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/elsevier-director-data-architecture.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T04:41:31Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":7226,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":3090},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=3090"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Felsevier-director-data-architecture"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Felsevier-director-data-architecture"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Felsevier-director-data-architecture"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/elsevier-director-data-architecture\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Felsevier-director-data-architecture"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3673758}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"elsevier.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3673758},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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