Sr. Data Architect, R&D IT

About the Opportunity

Driscoll’s is on a journey to modernize the digital infrastructure supporting our global berry breeding and R&D operations. At the heart of this transformation is the Genomic Sciences Platform (GSP), a next-generation data and analytics ecosystem designed to enable predictive breeding and genomic insights at scale. Own the end-to-end data architecture for GSP - modeling, governance, and APIs across lab, genotyping, breeding, phenotyping, and analytics domains. You’ll define reference architectures, standards, and patterns that integrate vendor platforms and internal tools (PowerApps, ShinyApps) with Driscoll’s enterprise data services. This is a unique opportunity to join an emerging R&D IT function embedded within Driscoll’s Global R&D organization, while partnering closely with the established Global Information Services (IS) team. You will work at the intersection of science and technology, engaging stakeholders from breeding, lab, genotyping, data science, and IT; to shape requirements, evaluate solutions, and ensure our digital investments deliver on scientific and business outcomes. This role is ideal for someone who thrives in early-stage discovery, can translate complex scientific workflows into technical solutions, and wants to help build something transformational from the ground up.
Driscoll’s Information Services (IS) department is responsible for maintaining and developing digital services and solutions to support and enable the Driscoll’s business, growers and customers. Global IS operates in a rapid changing business environment that embarked on a significant digital transformation journey.
The Global Information Services (IS) function operates through a global structure and is organized in departments by IT expertise. This role is located at our corporate headquarters in Watsonville, CA.

 Responsibilities

• Obtain a deep understanding of relevant business area(s) and business processes to be able to recommend solutions and build high-quality requirements.

• Define the target data architecture for GSP (conceptual/logical/physical), including canonical models for SNPs, samples, plates/runs, phenotypes, pedigrees, and trial metadata.

• Establish reference architectures for ingestion (stream/batch), curation, QC, and serving layers; select and standardize patterns (e.g., CDC, event streaming, warehouse/lakehouse).

• Author and maintain data contracts and platform APIs that decouple breeders/labs from downstream analytics and apps.

• Drive data quality, lineage, Master Data Management, cataloging, and access governance aligned to enterprise standards.

• Partner with IS Data Services on platform choices (e.g., Databricks/Azure/Oracle/AWS, orchestration, catalogs) and with security controls for scientific or PPI data.

• Lead solution design reviews; mentor engineers on modeling, partitioning, schema evolution, performance, and cost management.

• Evaluate/vendor-select enabling tech (pipelines, orchestration, storage, catalog, observability).

• Translate scientific workflows into resilient data products and SLAs for R&D users.

• Responsible for interpreting and validating horizontal business strategies and operational needs into technology solutions that drive efficiency and process improvement.

• Provide business and technical leadership and work with the IS Project Team to ensure that projects progress on expected timelines and alert project team to risks and issues related to IT solutions.

• Identify and understand up/down-stream impacts of requests and accommodate or mitigate risks accordingly.

• Lead the planning and support of user acceptance test cycles, including identifying and documenting all relevant business scenarios and test cases.

• Effectively prioritize and self-manage a multi-project workload in a fast-paced environment.

• Communicate effectively, both verbally and written, with business and technical teams

• Domestic and international travel required up to 10%.

• Represents Driscoll’s in an ethical and professional manner during all interactions with growers, co-workers, suppliers, customers, and the business community at large.

• Ensure the security of Driscoll’s confidential and proprietary information and materials.

    Candidate Profile

• 8+ years in data architecture/engineering; 3+ as a lead/architect designing enterprise or domain data platforms.

• Deep experience with modern data stacks.

• Strong dimensional/data-vault or domain-driven data product design; API and event-driven design.

• Practical experience with Python/SQL.

• Strong experience with Microsoft product suite, including Visio, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams and SharePoint required.

• Travel and after-hours support required.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, draw valid conclusions, and effectively present findings and recommendations to management.

• Demonstrated experience leveraging AI/ML tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, AutoML) to accelerate data pipeline development, system integration, and exploratory analysis in scientific or R&D environments.

• Experience in both in-house development solutions and implementation of vendor delivered applications preferred.

• Experience with custom web and mobile application development projects

• Modern cloud architecture experience; governance.

• Familiarity with scientific/R&D datasets.

• Prior work defining reference architectures and evangelizing standards across business units.

• Background in life sciences, ag-biotech, or high-throughput lab/omics data.

• A valid passport and the ability to travel internationally without restrictions.

Compensation & Benefits

The following information is provided in good faith as a general description of the salary range and benefits for the position posted. The actual compensation offered to the successful candidate is dependent upon experience, skills, education, work location, internal pay equity, and other objective job-related factors.

Salary Range estimated for the Sr. Data Architect, R&D IT role: $110,210.00/year to $170,000.00/year.

Driscoll’s is committed to a culture of care and offers an attractive benefits package that varies between our locations. Benefits may include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, life insurance, and disability coverage for positions working more than 30 hours per week (US). Other benefits may include: 401(k) with employer match, profit-sharing participation, paid sick time, paid vacation, paid personal and family care leave, and a free Employee Assistance Program (EAP). More detailed information regarding the benefits package based on your geographic location will be shared during the application process.

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