Senior Director, Data Architecture

Job description

Join Starr, a global leader in commercial insurance with over a century of expertise. We empower our employees to innovate, make impactful decisions, and build lasting client relationships worldwide. At Starr, you'll work in an entrepreneurial culture alongside accessible leaders, leveraging our financial strength and vast industry experience to deliver solutions for our clients, no matter how complex. Grow your career with a rapidly growing company that invests in its people and their ability to drive real progress. Job Description: Senior Director, Data Architecture Location: New York, NY Reports to: Head of Data Engineering & Chief Data Officer Department: Starr Technology Group Overview: The Senior Director, Data Architecture is a pivotal leadership role responsible for championing, building, and scaling a world-class Data Architecture practice in support of Starr’s global enterprise data vision. Reporting to the Chief Data Officer, the candidate will define and deliver modern, resilient, and secure data architectures that underpin all insurance systems, capabilities, and platforms. Leveraging deep domain experience in insurance (P&C and Specialty lines), data management, modeling, and analytics, the Senior Director will translate business and technical requirements into scalable data solutions that enable the organization’s innovation, regulatory compliance, and growth objectives. Central to this role is the development and stewardship of data architectural best practices, reference architectures, and standardized frameworks that drive consistency, quality, and governance across all data assets—spanning domains from Customer, Policy, Claims, and Financials to the augmentation of external data. The Senior Director will work collaboratively with engineering, product, analytics, and delivery teams to translate requirements into solutions, providing architectural oversight and hands-on technical delivery for strategic initiatives, and maintaining a current/future state roadmap for all data capabilities. This leader will drive adoption of modern data technologies, advanced data modeling, cloud architectures, and data governance principles, while building the discipline and maturity of Starr’s Data Architecture organization. This position is critical for supporting the scalable growth of business intelligence, analytics, and cross-enterprise data operations across the insurance portfolio. Responsibilities: Data Architecture Vision, Strategy & Governance Define and execute the data architecture vision and strategic roadmap in close alignment with the CDO and enterprise data strategy. Architect scalable, resilient, and secure solutions for enterprise-wide data integration, warehousing, analytics, operational systems, and augmentation with external data sources. Develop and champion standardized, insurance-centric data modeling frameworks, data architecture best practices, and reference architectures to ensure quality, consistency, and performance. Architectural Oversight & Solution Delivery Drive architectural oversight for design, build, and operate phases of critical enterprise data initiatives—including new insurance products, data platforms, modernization, digital transformation, and regulatory projects. Translate functional and technical requirements into robust data architectures; guide engineering, analytics, product, and delivery teams throughout the data solution lifecycle. Perform hands-on technical delivery and problem solving for complex, strategic initiatives, ensuring successful execution against business, compliance, and technical requirements. Formalize current- and future-state architectural roadmaps that support unified, global, and consistent views of Customer, Policy, Claims, Financials, and other key insurance data domains. Insurance Data Domain Leadership Develop and maintain standardized insurance data models, schemas, and pipelines; ensure applicability across the business for operational, analytical, and regulatory purposes. Integrate core insurance application data (e.g., Policy Administration, Claims, Reinsurance, Financials) with enterprise data platform and external third-party sources for holistic insights. Lead data architecture initiatives supporting evolving requirements of actuarial, underwriting, claims, compliance, finance, and product innovation teams. Adoption of Modern Data Technologies & Best Practices Evaluate, select, and drive adoption of cutting-edge data technologies and architectural approaches (cloud-native, distributed, streaming, data lakehouse, real-time analytics). Accelerate enablement of cloud-based, medallion architecture (bronze/silver/gold), data pipeline automation, metadata management, and advanced analytics infrastructure. Promote strong data governance integration—including quality, cataloging, lineage, privacy, security, and compliance policies—across all data architecture outputs. Data Organization Leadership & Team Building Build and mentor a high-performing Data Architecture function, including data architects, modelers, solution designers, and technical delivery leads. Foster cross-team collaboration with engineering, operations, analytics, and governance teams, ensuring seamless delivery of robust data solutions across the enterprise. Stakeholder Engagement & Change Leadership Serve as chief architectural advisor and liaison to internal and external stakeholders - educating teams on data architecture capabilities and value. Ensure business requirements are accurately captured and reflected in scalable technical designs; drive business adoption and platform utilization. Continuous Improvement, Innovation, & Risk Management Champion continuous improvement in architectural processes, tooling, methodology, and capability development. Lead architectural risk assessment, mitigation, and proactive controls to ensure technical, business, and compliance objectives are met. Track and report architectural health and progress using enterprise KPIs, quality metrics, and roadmap milestones. Technical Skills & Requirements: Advanced hands-on expertise in designing and modeling enterprise data architectures (cloud-native, hybrid, lakehouse, distributed, real-time). Deep experience with data management, advanced data modeling (conceptual, logical, physical), insurance data schemas, and master data/reference data frameworks. Proven delivery across modern data technology stacks—Databricks, Snowflake, Spark, AWS/Azure/GCP data services, streaming/data integration platforms, metadata/cataloging tools. Expertise in Medallion architecture, batch/streaming pipeline design, external data augmentation. In-depth understanding of metadata management, data governance, lineage, cataloging, residency and security/privacy frameworks. Familiarity with insurance business models, core platforms (Guidewire, Duck Creek, Majesco), and regulatory/compliance-driven architecture requirements. Ability to assess legacy and modern architectures, and transition organizations toward future state aligned with business goals. Experience driving transformation of architecture standards and best practices across globally distributed teams. Required Qualifications: Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, or related field; advanced degree highly preferred. 12+ years’ experience in data architecture, data modeling, and enterprise data management with 5+ years in senior leadership roles. Significant insurance industry experience, ideally within P&C and Specialty, with deep understanding of industry data requirements. Proven track record architecting, delivering, and governing complex data solutions for operational, analytical, and regulatory purposes in global organizations. Expertise building and formalizing insurance data models, frameworks, and best practices. Experience leading architectural teams, driving transformation and adoption of modern data architectures and governance. Excellent technical leadership, stakeholder management, communication, and problem-solving skills. Professional certifications in data architecture, cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), and insurance data management are highly desirable. An estimated salary range for this role is $200,000-$275,000 Starr is an equal opportunity employer, which means we'll consider all suitably qualified applicants regardless of gender identity or expression, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or beliefs, age, sexual orientation, disability status or any other protected characteristic. We recruit and develop our people based on merit and we're committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We offer first class training and development opportunities to all employees. Our aim is to grow our own talent and bring out the best in people.