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/DirectQuery). 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. The Reference Number For this position is NG61100 which is a 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 and other opportunities. #J-18808-Ljbffr