Senior Data Architect - Data Governance & Platform Uplift

Salary: AUD 1100 - 1250 per day, Leading AUS University

Overview
A major Australian university is executing a strategic Institutional Data Governance & Platform Uplift Program. As the program mobilises, it requires a Senior Data Architect to lead the architecture and design of its canonical data objects and ensure alignment across all dependent systems and integrations.

This is a 5 month contract role based in Sydney, hybrid (2 days on campus). You'll work closely with the Architecture Governance Group, Data Governance Group and business stewards across Student, HR, Research, Finance and Asset Management domains.

Key Responsibilities

• CDO Authoring & Lifecycle Management - Lead discovery, definition and documentation of canonical data objects (Person, Student, Worker, Research Project, Organisational Unit, Asset). Author CDO entries with business definitions, relationships and non-functional requirements (lifecycle, retention, resilience, sensitivity).
• Integration Architecture & Contract Design - Translate CDO definitions into canonical integration contracts for APIs, events and emerging AI/agentic interfaces. Partner with integration architects to ensure enterprise definitions are enforced across all consuming systems.
• Governance & Stakeholder Alignment - Prepare CDO submissions for governance sign-off. Facilitate discovery workshops and validation sessions with business stewards, faculty, and SMEs. Document outcomes and decisions.
• Program Alignment - Align CDOs to dependent Digital Sydney initiatives (Student Management, workforce systems, research platforms, enterprise data platform, finance/asset systems). Provide architecture advisory to consuming programs during implementation.

Must-Have Experience

• Proven expertise in conceptual data modelling, business information modelling and data classification frameworks.
• Demonstrated ability to author data definitions (entities, relationships, identity, classification, lifecycle, provenance) and apply them consistently across diverse domains.
• Working knowledge of integration patterns and contract design (APIs, events, emerging interfaces sufficient to collaborate with integration architects on canonical schema.
• Strong workshop facilitation and stakeholder engagement skills - comfortable eliciting, validating, and documenting requirements with business and technical teams.
• Ability to think conceptually and holistically at the enterprise level, recognising patterns across business, data, application and integration layers.
• Strong written communication - ability to produce clear architecture artefacts (CDO briefs, governance submissions).

Nice-to-Have

• Familiarity with the CAUDIT Higher Education Reference Model (HERM) or comparable sector reference standards.
• Experience in tertiary education or regulated sectors (public sector, healthcare, finance).

The Details

• Location: Sydney, hybrid (3 days on campus per week)
• Rate: $1,100 - $1,250/day + super
• Term: 5 months (possible extensions)
• Start: ASAP
• Citizenship/Work Rights: Australian citizen or permanent resident - must be based in Sydney.

How to Apply
Interested? Email [email protected] with a brief intro and your CV.

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