Data & AI Governance Architect

About Us

At Booking.com, data drives our decisions. Technology is at our core. And innovation is everywhere. But our company is more than datasets, lines of code or A/B tests. We’re the thrill of the first night in a new place. The excitement of the next morning. The friends you encounter. The journeys you take. The sights you see. And the memories you make. Through our products, partners and people, we make it easier for everyone to experience the world.

About the team

The Data & AI Governance department enables extending the governance theme of policies, standards, processes and technology for governing data and AI to driving excellence in our approach to leveraging secure, trusted, accessible data for data driven decision making through:

• An overarching Data & AI Policy to include associated standards
• Data & AI Governance including meta and master data management
• Data & AI Delivery Governance
• Data & AI Quality including both technical and business quality measures

This enables the maturity of Data and AI capabilities across Booking.com, unlocking data and algorithms as assets for delivering innovative growth opportunities and cost saving operational efficiencies.

Role Description

The Data & AI Governance Architect role will report into the Data & AI Governance Solution Architect in the Data & AI Governance department in the CDO office. You will work with the teams in different business units across Booking.com to co-create the architecture solutions for data & AI governance across data & AI initiatives. You will be responsible for implementing best practice, supporting decision making and ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, compliant and fit for the future and that the Architecture Design Authority is run smoothly and continually improving its efficiency and alignment with industry standards. It will also be your responsibility to work with the Solution Architect to align the program to the broader technical and enterprise data & AI strategies. Ensuring that the solution is well positioned to connect with an ecosystem of platform capabilities that combine to connect the trip for our customers and partners in a secure, trusted and compliant manner.

Depth of technical knowledge is an important aspect of this role. However, the ability to partner with and advise non-technical stakeholders is of equal importance. In this role you will partner with product and engineering counterparts and the broader Data Architecture community to understand future direction and utilize this in the creation of architecture solutions.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties

• Deep understanding and hands-on experience designing, building, improving, and operating high-performance, high-availability, scalable and secure data storage, governance and consumption solutions that scale and adapt to strategy
• Ability to build an architecture that can respond quickly to new use cases - develop an understanding of our business and stakeholders to underpin this
• Contribute to data architecture governance and decision processes
• Proficiency in modeling canonical data asset for critical data entities, and in protecting and promoting their golden source status - quick to recognise when they need to evolve to stay golden and how they can integrate to mature data and governance capabilities
• Proven experience employing best in class technology to continually optimise the tech stack and tools strategy for the data & AI governance platform(s)
• Identification of bottlenecks within system design that impede delivery velocity
• Data driven nature, expect it in design, lead by example
• Demonstrable experience of cloud technology (AWS or similar) and designing cloud native systems
• Approachable & effective communicator, explain design and challenges in a way the audience understands
• Coaching and mentoring, building our architecture excellence systemically through the team
• Ability to drive impact at scale across a large data product & engineering organisation

Desirable Skills

• Experience of building out modern data architectures
• Experience of Data Governance & engineering Continuous Delivery and Agile delivery methodologies
• Experience with Conceptual and Logical Data Modeling practices
• Experience of data vault modeling including Hub, Link, and Satellite structures, how to architect it well and how to build an effective consumption layer on top
• Experience of integrating siloed businesses or verticals with diverse data and standards
• Knowledge and experience of enterprise architecture practices and capability-based planning
• Knowledge and experience of Data & AI Governance and management and how to weave into data architecture effectively
• API design
• Handle data following strict privacy and compliance requirements
• Provide support for internal teams

Role Qualifications and Requirements

• Responsible with the Solution Architect for the integrity and excellence of the CDO Data & AI Governance architecture and its value
• Partner with Data Architecture community to co-create group wide data architecture practices with localized implementation in BUs
• Craft and promote data architecture principles for the Data & AI Governance team - take accountability for embedding them in culture and design
• Continually strive for architectural simplicity. Design and promote canonical assets that serve multiple use cases and drive integration for data and for our business - manage technical debt wisely
• Collaborate with data modelling community to drive out data modelling standards with the business units
• Consider and manage cost and security risk in design and maintenance, assume overall responsibility for managing data & AI Governance platform costs within the CDO and Central Tech
• Collaborate with Compliance and data & AI governance on measuring and managing risks effectively
• Partner with senior engineers to assess and protect quality of solution design, bringing an enterprise perspective to the table and protecting simplicity of the asset estate
• Design and lead architecture review forums - formal and informal to nurture design excellence and maintain the integrity of the architecture principles
• Be flexible, find the balance in working with senior engineers to agree the best solution for urgent tactical needs while keeping the need to return to architecture principles on the roadmap
• Develop communities of practice to embed and evolve architecture ways of working and improve the quality of architectural decision making
• Create the culture, processes and principles that embed data quality and Governance by design. Lead and illustrate by example managing standardisation through templated documents and architectural artifacts.

Critical Thinking

• Identify patterns and underlying issues in complex situations, and to find solutions by applying logical and analytical thinking and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.
• Constructively evaluate and develop ideas, plans and solutions by reviewing them, objectively taking into account external knowledge, initiating 'SMART' improvements and articulating their rationale and guide more junior members of the team in this topic.

Pre-Employment Screening

If your application is successful, your personal data may be used for a pre-employment screening check by a third party as permitted by applicable law. Depending on the vacancy and applicable law, a pre-employment screening may include employment history, education and other information (such as media information) that may be necessary for determining your qualifications and suitability for the position.

Key skills/competency

• Data Governance
• AI Governance
• Architecture Design
• Cloud Technology (AWS)
• Data Modeling
• Data Architecture
• Stakeholder Management
• Risk Management
• Technical Leadership
• System Design