Principal Data Architect-Remote

Job Ref: 174909

Location: Providence, RI 02903 Location Flexibility: Remote Category: IT Job Type: Full-time Job Status: Exempt Anticipated Closing Date: January 30, 2026 Pay Basis: Yearly Pay Range: $13,140.00 - $25,360.00 Annually (63.17 - 121.92 Hourly) Brand: UNFI

Job Overview

The Principal IT Solutions Data Architect leads end-to-end data architecture on AWS leveraging Databricks for computing governance and platform evolution, defines data product patterns, domain models, and best practices, partnering with engineering, analytics, security, and business teams to deliver resilient, high-performance, governed data solutions.

What does it mean to be part of the Information Technology Team?

A role in Information Technology at UNFI involves being a part of the transformation of food for all through many innovative technology products, such as myUNFI, our customer ordering platform, or our warehouse management systems that optimize service. You will have an opportunity to be a part of the technology journey to transform food for all through collaboration and building solutions across teams that directly contribute to our OneUNFI strategy. Roles include network automation, infrastructure unification and modernization, data services and analytics, and digital offering.

Job Responsibilities

Enterprise Architecture

• Own the enterprise data architecture vision and roadmap across batch streaming, ML, and BI workloads on AWS Databricks.
• Establish reference architectures, canonical models, and standards for Medallion, Lakehouse design, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and data product contracts.
• Lead design for high throughput ingestion, CDC streaming, file API, and domain data products, supply chain, commercial finance, with SLOs for freshness, quality, and cost.
• Define governance-by-design data classification, lineage, access patterns, attribute- and purpose-based privacy, retention, and audit using Unity Catalog and AWS services.
• Architect scalable, cost-efficient processing, autoscaling clusters, SQL warehouses, optimized Delta design, Z-Order, OPTIMIZE clustering, photon-aware pipelines, job orchestration.
• Drive interoperability with SAP, define patterns for SAP extract, CDC, e.g., ODP, SLT, SDI model alignment with SAP Business Data Cloud, Datasphere, and harmonized semantics.
• Design and review near real-time data flows, Spark Structured Streaming, Delta Live Tables, Auto Loader, Kafka, Kinesis, MSK for operational analytics and event-driven use cases.

Champion Data Quality, Observability, Great Expectations, Deque Delta Expectations, Lineage, and SLAs with incident management and FinOps guardrails.

Partner with InfoSec to implement platform security, IAM, Lakehouse permissions, tokenization, patterns, private networking, encryption, and data masking tokenization patterns.

Collaborate with analytics and data science to productionable features, ML, AI workloads, and vector, semantic search, where appropriate, ensuring reproducibility and MLOps readiness.

Strategic Leadership and Coaching

• Provides strategic advice on project costs, design concepts, or design changes, including risks and assessment of decisions.
• Communicates project information to senior stakeholders, including technical reporting and high visibility presentations.
• Trains data engineers in new concepts and AI knowledge.

Job Requirements

Education and Certifications

• Bachelors degree in computer science, systems analysis, or a related study.
• Experience in data architecture, including 5 years designing at enterprise scale in cloud data platforms.

Hands-on Expertise

• Databricks, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, SQL Warehouses, Spark, DLT Workflows, ML Stack, and AWS core services (S3, Glue, Lambda, EMR, or MSK).
• Strong data modeling experience across operational, analytical, and semantic layers, 3NF data vault, dimensional star, and data product contract design with tools like Erwin ER Studio.
• Proven track record building resilient streaming and batch data pipelines with performance tuning, cost optimization, and observability.
• Experience with SAP Business Data Cloud, SAP Datasphere, and SAP data integration (ODPSLT, CDS views, BTP services, or prior SAP BWERP data models).

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Deep understanding of governance, security, and privacy, RBAC, ABAC, PII handling, masking, tokenization, retention, lineage, and access approvals.
• Presentation skills, including all levels within the organization.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement ability to convert business outcomes into clear architecture options and trade-offs.
• Strong documentation and standards leadership.
• Familiarity with ML, AI on Databricks, Feature Store, Model Serving, vector search, and MLOps patterns, CICD model lineage governance.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills in areas such as teamwork, facilitation, and negotiation.

Work Environment

Remote Role

This position is classified as remote, where the associate will perform remote work from their primary residence. Remote associates are welcome to work from the office but are not required to do so. While remote associates are not required to work from an office on a regular basis, they may be required to come to the office or other UNFI locations for necessary business reasons or if directed to do so by their manager.

About UNFI

We are North Americas premier grocery wholesaler, delivering the widest variety of fresh, branded, and owned brand products to community grocers and retail chains alike. A pioneer in natural and organic foods, we are growing and transforming to meet the needs of an evolving workplace. Our 29,000 employees work across America in our 50 Distribution Centers and corporate offices. Learn more about Organic, Natural, and Conventional Food, Wholesale Food Distributors, and UNFI.

Benefits

• Competitive 401k
• Flexible PTO
• Remote Health benefits - first of the month following 30 days of employment
• Mentorship program
• Developmental opportunities

UNFI is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive and respectful environment for all. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or other protected ground. Accommodation is available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the job selection process.

Veteran Disability. VEVRAA Federal Contractor.

Company

United Natural Foods, Inc.

Compensation

UNFI anticipates paying the above-referenced pay rate or within the above-referenced pay range for this position. Actual Pay, where applicable, will depend on a number of factors, including but not limited to education, experience, training, and any requirements under applicable collective bargaining agreements. UNFI is committed to transparency in pay in compliance with applicable state, provincial, and local laws.

Benefits

For Washington positions or positions that may be performed remotely from Washington, Click HERE for Washington-specific paid time off details.

Candidates hired into this position will also be eligible to participate in the following benefits programs:

• Paid Time Off
• Sick Time
• Paid holidays
• Parental leave
• 401K Program or retirement savings plan (if in Canada)
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and accidental death/dismemberment insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability insurance program
• Flexible Spending Account and/or Health Savings Account (U.S. only, subject to meeting the eligibility requirements and the terms and conditions of these programs and subject to any requirements under applicable collective bargaining agreements)

Sales Positions Only

For sales positions that are commission-based, the above range is an estimate of total potential commission-based compensation during an associates first year. UNFI offers an introductory period minimum of $680 per week. After the introductory period, as a 100% commission-based role, there is no set salary. UNFIs commission plans are uncapped, and average earnings vary depending on territory and sales achieved among other factors.

UNFIs compensation benefits and paid time off policies are subject to change in the Companys sole discretion consistent with applicable law. This job posting should not be construed as an offer of employment with certain terms nor should it be construed as a guaranteed minimum.

Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act or for Canadian applicants in accordance with provincial human rights legislation.