Microsoft Fabric Data Architect Our client seeks a strategic and forward-thinking Microsoft Fabric Data Architect with proven experience designing and governing enterprise-wide data and analytics ecosystems. Brings strong leadership capability in defining and executing target‑state architectures across OneLake, Lakehouse and Warehouse environments, orchestration frameworks, semantic models, and real‑time analytics solutions. Recognised for aligning data architecture with business strategy, ensuring secure, scalable, and cost‑efficient platforms that drive measurable outcomes. Experienced in establishing governance frameworks, reference architectures, and best‑practice standards that enable high‑performing delivery teams. Adept at providing architectural oversight, guiding cross‑functional stakeholders, and fostering a data‑driven culture within complex, fast‑paced environments. Responsibilities Define and maintain Microsoft Fabric reference architecture (OneLake, Lakehouse/Warehouse, pipelines, notebooks, semantic models). Select and implement optimal data patterns (ETL/ELT, batch/streaming, Direct Lake vs Import/Direct Query). Establish and enforce data modelling standards, semantic models, and metric definitions. Design governance frameworks, workspace strategies, and security models (RBAC, RLS/OLS, PII handling). Plan platform capacity, optimise workloads, and improve performance and cost efficiency. Conduct architecture reviews, approve designs, and ensure solution alignment with business goals. Mentor engineers and analysts, promoting reusable templates, reference patterns, and best practices. Facilitate cross‑team alignment on data quality, metric definitions, and delivery standards. Produce documentation, CI/CD pipelines, operational runbooks, and incident management resources. Qualifications & Experience Deep hands‑on expertise with Microsoft Fabric (Lakehouse, Warehouse, OneLake, semantic models, pipelines/dataflows, Spark) Experience in Azure Data Factory, Azure Synapse, Azure Databricks, Ms Fabric Strong SQL and advanced data modelling skills Proven experience in enterprise governance, RLS/OLS, and secure‑by‑design architectures CI/CD and Git‑based deployment experience Excellent documentation and stakeholder communication skills 12+ years in data/BI/analytics, with 2–5+ years in an architecture or lead role Experience delivering enterprise data platforms or cloud migrations Desirable Certifications: DP‑600 – Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate / DP‑700 – Fabric Data Engineer Associate / AZ‑305 – Azure Solutions Architect Expert Reference Number: NG61100 . Permanent Hybrid position based in Johannesburg offering a cost to company of up to R1.6 mil per annum negotiable on experience and ability. Contact Nokuthula at or call her on to discuss this. #J-18808-Ljbffr