Data Architect

Data Architect - Brussels, Belgium

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Intro

Join RELYzIT Talent as a Data Architect and help shape the digital backbone of the public sector in Belgium. This freelance mission is your opportunity to architect the future of data for our client, a central player in the digital transformation of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. If you thrive on impact, collaboration, and building solutions that matter, this is your next challenge.

Why This Role Matters

Our client is driving a major transformation in public sector IT, with data at the heart of its mission. As Data Architect, you will be instrumental in mapping, modeling, and designing the target data architecture for the organizing authority of official education. Your work will directly influence how data empowers decision-making, operational efficiency, and innovation across the region. The stakes: enabling secure, high-quality, and future-ready data ecosystems that serve millions.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Lead the diagnosis of the current data landscape: identify sources, flows, reference systems, and pain points.
• Facilitate workshops with business analysts, enterprise architects, and program teams to align business needs with data architecture.
• Develop conceptual and logical models of key business objects, producing a comprehensive data dictionary and quality rules.
• Identify reference data, master systems (Systems of Record), and define data ownership rules.
• Formulate and document data architecture principles and rules tailored to the program’s needs.
• Construct and compare target architecture options (e.g., data hub, lakehouse, mesh, virtualization), providing clear, argued recommendations.
• Collaborate with solution architects, data engineers, DBAs, and platform teams to ensure technical feasibility and alignment.
• Translate security, GDPR, sovereignty, and digital sobriety requirements into actionable architecture rules.
• Define minimal data governance foundations: roles, metadata catalog, lifecycle, and access rights management.
• Develop a prioritized, actionable roadmap with transition architectures and clear dependencies.
• Document workshops, decisions, and recommendations for seamless knowledge transfer.
• Act as a pivotal link between business, technical, and governance stakeholders, ensuring clarity and consensus.

What We’re Looking For

• Proven expertise in mapping complex data landscapes, including sources, flows, applications, and reference systems.
• Mastery of conceptual and logical data modeling (entity-relationship, UML, Merise, ArchiMate, dimensional modeling).
• Deep experience with reference data management, master systems (SoR), data dictionaries, and metadata catalogs.
• Ability to facilitate workshops, synthesize business requirements, and translate them into robust data architectures.
• Strong analytical skills to compare and recommend data architecture paradigms (hub, lakehouse, mesh, virtualization, etc.).
• Hands-on with modeling and mapping tools (e.g., Sparx Enterprise Architect) and data cataloging solutions.
• Solid understanding of data governance: roles, lifecycle, access rights, GDPR, and the "only once" principle.
• Experience formulating architecture frameworks and templates (TOGAF, ArchiMate, DAMA-DMBOK or equivalents).
• Ability to define and enforce exchange and exposure patterns (API, event-driven, replication, virtualization, analytics supply).
• Track record of translating security, data protection, and sovereignty requirements into architecture decisions.
• Exceptional communication and documentation skills, with the ability to defend and evolve recommendations in a collaborative environment.
• Team player who thrives in multidisciplinary settings and can pivot between business, technical, and governance perspectives.

Technical Skills

• Data landscape mapping and gap analysis (Expert)
• Conceptual and logical data modeling: ER, UML, Merise, ArchiMate, dimensional modeling (Expert)
• Reference data management, MDM, SoR, data dictionary, metadata catalog (Expert)
• Architecture frameworks: TOGAF, ArchiMate, DAMA-DMBOK or equivalents (Confirmed)
• Data governance: roles, lifecycle, access rights, GDPR, "only once" (Confirmed)
• Modeling and mapping tools: e.g., Sparx Enterprise Architect (Confirmed)
• Data architecture paradigms: hub, lakehouse, mesh, data fabric, virtualization (Expert)
• Exchange and exposure patterns: API, event-driven, replication, virtualization, analytics (Confirmed)
• Data security and sovereignty: architecture rule translation (Confirmed)

Language Proficiency

• Professional proficiency in English required.
• French or Dutch proficiency is a strong asset given the project context.

Other Requirements

• Ability to work partially remote with on-site presence in Brussels as needed.
• Experience in public sector or large-scale transformation projects is a plus.
• Strong documentation and workshop facilitation skills.
• Availability for a mission planned until end of April 2027.

Position Type

• This is a freelance position with a defined project duration, based in Brussels, Belgium.

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