Lead Architect- Metadata, Audiences and Publishing London, England
Job description
This is a role to be a Lead Data Architect working on the data which powers the wide spectrum of the BBC’s digital applications. You will be part of the Product Group who build all the digital experiences for our audiences. You will be responsible for the modelling, creating, deploying and the management of the BBC’s data architecture across our digital portfolio.
It is an exciting and ambitious opportunity to help teams create world-class websites and apps covering news, sport, education, and more. Every day, tens of millions of people use the BBC’s sites and apps. But we are just getting started. Our goal is to create personalised, relevant experiences that everyone can trust and love. Quality data is at the heart of that, and as lead data architect you will provide the expertise to help make that happen.
This key role will be responsible for realising the information architecture of our products, users and content. This includes working closely with our teams on the implementation of our data models and to optimising our use of data. Our data architects are embedded in agile, cross-functional teams, where you will work alongside product, delivery, editorial, engineering, technical architects, data science, business-, data-analysis, and user
experience specialists, as well as key stakeholders, at all stages of development.
You will also work closely with and alongside other architects in the Product Group to contribute to the strategy for the services we use to manage content and metadata, audience data and audience accounts. We are looking for someone who will be an advocate for the use of data and who can communicate with a broad community of data professionals and users of data across the BBC.
The BBC offers an inclusive workplace with a commitment to ensure that fairness, respect, equality, dignity, and freedom are promoted and are part of our everyday goals and behaviour. We select candidates for our positions based on merit and as an equal opportunity employer we value diversity and all the benefits it brings.
We want the BBC to be as renowned for the quality of its engineering as it is for the quality of its content. We aspire to be the best so that we can engineer outstanding digital products, at scale. Working here in an architecture role means working in a collaborative environment, being part of a world-class team and a chance to do the most meaningful work of your career.
We take personal development seriously and offer innovation time and access to a wide variety of training and conferences.
Main ResponsibilitiesOn a typical day, you will:
- You will build effective relationships and work with multi-disciplinary teams, product owners, stakeholders, technical architects, and relevant 3rd-party suppliers to ensure the predictable and reliable delivery of our goals aligned with the department’s strategy.
- You will be producing conceptual and logical data models, defining quality rules, and defining business vocabularies around the key areas of users, products, and content metadata to support several use-cases such as personalisation, reporting, and commissioning.
- You will assist our multi-functional teams with the definition of project scope and approach to data during project inception and to assist in the definition of implementation, in particular working with engineering teams to translate logical data models into physical models.
- You will assist the department’s architecture team in identifying strategic requirements, business risks and advising on cross platform roadmaps and migration plans to achieve strategic goals.
- You will provide advice and consultancy to our data product owners, management, commissioning, and project teams on matters of data architecture and developments, including their feasibility.
- You will assist with improving the standard of data quality and governance within our teams through coaching and mentoring staff.
- You will be responsible for communicating and documenting the data architecture of our domains.
- This role does not usually involve line management, but as a data expert you will guide & mentor more junior colleagues in our data disciplines and to drive topics as part of our wider data community.
The day-to-day
- Culture: In this role, you will be embedded within our cross-discipline development teams, working closely with product, engineering, QA, and user experience teams. Every day you will collaborate with a wide range of high-calibre professionals, of all disciplines. We have an open and respectful culture where everyone’s opinions are valued.
- Location: Our teams are based across the country, and predominately work remotely, occasionally coming together for collaboration. We have main development hubs for data, analytics, content metadata and machine learning teams in Glasgow, Salford, Newcastle and London, and we have stakeholders based across the UK.
- Growth: This is a flexible role, which you can shape based on how you would like to grow your skills and career. There are always plenty of opportunities to learn, take on new responsibilities, attend conferences, and so much more.
- Demonstrable data architecture experience delivering production systems, including real-time data platforms, in cloud environments.
- Strong understanding of modern approaches to data engineering and the best approaches to solving real-world data problems.
- Experience in creating evolvable data models around key data entities and creating an inventory of the data needed to implement solutions
- Experience in working with a multi-disciplinary delivery team of product managers, engineers, and analysts to ensure delivery of an architectural strategy.
- Experience building ETL/ELT pipelines, Data Lakes, and Data Warehouses
- Experience of collaborating across organisational boundaries to align work to agreed strategic direction
- Experience evaluating existing and emerging technologies and their potential uses to support delivery of business value.
- Experience in developing and advocating data strategies.
- Knowledge of event driven architectures, near-real time stream processing and batch processing.
As an organisation we support and encourage all our colleagues in gaining new skills and experiences.
- Excellent communications skills with the ability to influence change.
- Help teams choose the best solution to complex problems.
- Ability to communicate at all levels and translate technical jargon for non-technical staff.
- Ability to devise strategic vision and to articulate that vision to all audiences.
- Ability to make informed choices based on empirical evidence
- Able to work collaboratively and maintain effective relationships at all levels within an organisation.
- Self-motivated with the ability to inspire others with energy, drive, and desire to achieve goals.
- A passion for learning and self-improvement.
We don’t focus simply on what we do – we also care how we do it. Our values and the way we behave are important to us. Please make sure you’ve read about our values and behaviours in the document attached below.
Diversity matters at the BBC. We have a working environment where we value and respect every individual's unique contribution, enabling all of our employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.
We want to attract the broadest range of talented people to be part of the BBC – whether that’s to contribute to our programming or our wide range of non-production roles. The more diverse our workforce, the better able we are to respond to and reflect our audiences in all their diversity.
We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, socio-economic background, religion and/or belief. We will consider flexible working requests for all roles, unless operational requirements prevent otherwise.
To find out more about Diversity and Inclusion at the BBC, please click here
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Package Description
Band: E
Contract type: Permanent- Full time
Location: London/ Salford / Glasgow / Newcastle
We’re happy to discuss flexible working. Please indicate your choice under the flexible working question in the application. There is no obligation to raise this at the application stage but if you wish to do so, you are welcome to. Flexible working will be part of the discussion at offer stage.
- Excellent career progression – the BBC offers great opportunities for employees to seek new challenges and work in different areas of the organisation.
- Unrivalled training and development opportunities – our in-house Academy hosts a wide range of internal and external courses and certification.
- Benefits- We offer a competitive salary package, a flexible 35-hour working week for work-life balance and 26 days (1 of which is a corporation day) with the option to buy an extra 5 days, a defined pension scheme and discounted dental, health care, gym and much more.
