Data Architect

Job Description

Your Impact :

At Rexel, we make our teams more successful by becoming a data driven company through the systematic adoption of predictive analytics. As we accelerate this transformation, we open a new position of Data Architect in our Data & Integration Technologies Teams.  

As a Data Architect, your mission will be to drive the development of the Data Platform, the technical foundation supporting Advanced Analytics Solutions, by defining the technological roadmap and ensuring the continuous improvement of the platform and make the link with the AI and advanced analytics solutions that are supported by the data platform.  

You will be key in establishing a close link between the central Hub teams and IT managers in several European countries. And you will act as an ambassador for the Data Platform, securing rapid adoption and enabling value generation for your internal customers.

Your Day-to-Day Responsibilities :

1) Drive the evolution of Rexel’s enterprise data architecture 

• Partner with data citizens, country IT teams, and business stakeholders to implement data strategies, design data flows, and develop conceptual, logical, and physical data models. 

• Act as a subject-matter expert and reference point for data modeling, ensuring consistency, reusability, and alignment with existing data assets and enterprise architecture principles. 

• Define and govern data modeling, data integration, data quality, metadata management, and design standards across the organization. 

• Establish best practices for data products, data domains, data contracts, APIs, event-driven integrations, and self-service analytics. 

• Set up and lead key architecture and governance meetings with country IT services, ensuring clear decisions, ownership, and a defined path forward. 

• Keep up to date with industry trends and evaluate emerging technologies in cloud data platforms, artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, automation, and data governance. 

• Contribute to the definition of an AI-ready data architecture, ensuring that data is discoverable, trusted, secure, well-governed, and suitable for advanced analytics and AI use cases. 

2) Design and develop Rexel’s modern data platform 

• Design and maintain Rexel’s enterprise data model, and own its lifecycle, documentation, dependencies, and end-to-end lineage. 

• Design and evolve cloud-native data platforms, including data lakes, lakehouses, operational data stores, curated data layers, data marts, and analytical data products. 

• Define scalable and resilient data architectures using modern storage, processing, integration, and analytics technologies rather than relying solely on traditional relational database management systems. 

• Identify the architecture, infrastructure, interfaces, and integration patterns required to connect operational systems, SaaS applications, APIs, files, and other enterprise data sources. 

• Design and support automated batch and real-time data pipelines, including orchestration, monitoring, data validation, error handling, and recovery mechanisms. 

• Establish data observability practices covering pipeline health, freshness, completeness, accuracy, availability, schema changes, lineage, and service-level expectations. 

• Support the implementation and adoption of enterprise data cataloguing and metadata management tools, ensuring that critical data assets are documented, searchable, classified, and assigned to accountable owners. 

• Collaborate with data governance teams to implement data ownership, business glossaries, data classification, access policies, retention rules, and regulatory requirements. 

• Design data structures and interfaces that support reporting, advanced analytics, machine learning, generative AI, and other data-driven applications. 

• Ensure that data models and platform components support AI and ML use cases, including feature management, training datasets, model inputs, data lineage, explainability, and responsible AI principles. 

• Identify and address security, privacy, compliance, performance, scalability, and cost-management considerations across the data platform. 

• Contribute to the design of semantic layers and reusable analytical models that enable consistent business definitions across dashboards, analytics, and AI applications. 

• Remain hands-on in conceptual, logical, and physical data modeling, data architecture, and platform design. 

3) Establish standards, methodologies, and knowledge across the Data Platform 

• Develop, maintain, and document standards and methodologies covering data architecture, data modeling, data integration, data quality, metadata, observability, and platform engineering. 

• Maintain onboarding documentation, architecture guidelines, reference patterns, playbooks, and knowledge bases for internal teams and implementation partners. 

• Promote common data definitions, reusable patterns, and consistent implementation practices across countries and business domains. 

• Provide expert judgment on data model efficiency, scalability, maintainability, performance, and suitability for analytics and AI use cases. 

• Define and monitor validation processes to ensure that data models, pipelines, data products, and platform components meet agreed quality and governance standards. 

• Support architecture reviews, design authority processes, and technical assessments for new data initiatives. 

• Encourage a culture of data ownership, data literacy, continuous improvement, and engineering excellence across Rexel. 

• Share knowledge with solution architects, data engineers, analytics teams, data stewards, and business stakeholders through workshops, coaching, and communities of practice. 

Qualifications

• Engineering degree (or equivalent) with at least 10 years of professional experience 

• Proven experience delivering large-scale data projects 

• Significant experience working with offshore teams is mandatory (India would be a plus) 

Hard skills 

• Expert knowledge of project management methodologies and tools. 

• Strong expertise in Information Technology systems and architectures. 

• Extensive expertise in data modelling principles and methodologies, including conceptual, logical and physical data models. 

• Strong expertise in both dimensional and operational data modelling. 

• Solid experience in software development and SQL. 

• Good knowledge of Power BI is a plus. 

• Hands-on experience with data catalogue tools, such as Atlan. 

• Proven experience with Snowflake is mandatory. 

• Experience with DBT is a plus. 

Soft skills 

• Excellent leadership skills, with proven experience collaborating with cross-functional teams. 

• Ability and seniority to challenge country business teams and question existing processes when relevant. 

• Pragmatic and solution-oriented mindset, with the ability to address complex issues and translate business needs into effective solutions. 

• Strong change management skills, with the ability to drive transformation and successfully engage and onboard business teams. 

Additional Information

Rexel offers an attractive compensation package with a 13-month base salary and an individual performance-based bonus. The company also provides a profit-sharing plan and additional benefits (health insurance, retirement plans, transport and meal allowances, etc.). 

Feel free to contact us to learn more! 

At Rexel, we believe our success depends on you. We help you develop your skills and explore new areas within the company as part of your career growth. We are committed to social responsibility, equality, and diversity in our workplace. Together, we can create a better future. Apply now and take advantage of this opportunity for growth and development.

Chez Rexel, nous pensons que notre succès dépend de vous. Nous vous aidons à développer vos connaissances et à explorer de nouveaux domaines au sein de l'entreprise et dans le cadre de votre développement de carrière.

Nous sommes conscients de notre responsabilité sociale et nous nous engageons en faveur de l'égalité et de la diversité dans notre environnement de travail. Ensemble, nous pouvons créer un avenir meilleur. Postulez maintenant et profitez de cette opportunité de croissance et de développement.