About Northern Trust
As a global leader in innovative wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking services, Northern Trust (Nasdaq: NTRS) is proud to guide the world’s most successful individuals, families, corporations and institutions.
Since 1889, we have aligned our efforts with our three guiding Principles That Endure: Service, Expertise, and Integrity. Together, they reflect the three cornerstones of business conduct which we strive to instill in our employees, whom we call partners, and to provide to our clients and the communities we serve worldwide.
With more than 135 years of financial experience and over 24,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.
The Senior Information Architect sits within Northern Trust’s Information Architecture team, shaping the firm’s enterprise data strategy, data modelling standards, and AI‑enabled capabilities.
The role will provide design authority and governance across conceptual, logical, and physical data models, operating across the firm’s cloud data platforms and contributing to AI‑driven data products.
Data Modelling & Architecture
Lead and contribute with conceptual, logical, and physical data model design aligned to the firm's data mesh and medallion architectures
Govern and maintain the enterprise data model library in SqlDBM, enforcing naming conventions, domain standards, and versioning
Define and steward canonical data entities and lineage across source, integration, and consumption layers
Help with the translation of business requirements into rigorous data structures in collaboration with engineering and domain teams
Guide teams on the design and effective use of semantic data models, including their application to agentic AI solutions
Semantic & Knowledge Modelling
Integrate semantic layers with business glossaries, data catalogues, and lineage tooling
Design and maintain semantic models to support agentic-AI capabilities
Help develop ontologies, taxonomies, and controlled vocabularies underpinning enterprise metadata and search
Define semantic modelling standards and patterns to ensure consistent meaning, interoperability, and AI readiness across data products
Guide and control the creation of data domains that align with the banks underlying capabilities
Data Engineering & Platforms
Design data product schemas across Snowflake and Databricks, including Delta Lake structures and access patterns
Define and enforce architectural guardrails for data product design, including performance, scalability, security, and cost efficiency
Set design standards and review transformation/pipelines for compliance
Embed data contract standards and data quality frameworks across pipeline outputs
Agentic AI & AI-Assisted Development
Leverage Snowflake Cortex / Databricks Genie (or similar) to help engineering teams deliver natural language query and LLM-augmented data products
Utilize GitHub Copilot (or similar) to accelerate modelling, documentation, and pipeline development
Design and define a set of agentic skills that can be provided to implementation teams
Contribute to the firm's AI Champion network, evaluating emerging capabilities and advising on adoption
Enterprise Architecture & Design Assurance
Act as a design authority for data architecture across teams and data domains
Partner with enterprise, security, and risk architecture to ensure data solutions align with broader technology and regulatory standards
Provide early-stage architectural input to initiative discovery and solution design to reduce delivery risk
Governance & Stakeholder Engagement
Present architecture decisions to senior stakeholders, architecture review boards, and regulatory audiences
Support regulatory compliance through robust lineage, metadata management, and data quality evidence
Mentor junior architects and engineers within the Information Architecture community of practice
The ideal candidate should have a fair amount of the following skills and experience:
Proven experience in data architecture, data engineering, or information management
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, Engineering, or a related discipline
Proven enterprise data modelling experience at conceptual, logical, and physical levels
Hands-on SqlDBM experience (or equivalent modern toolset)
Proven experience with dbt Labs
Good Python skills, API integration, automation
Practical Snowflake and Databricks experience including Cortex AI and Genie
Working knowledge of OWL, RDF, SPARQL and enterprise ontology design
Experience with at least one agentic AI framework
GitHub Copilot or equivalent AI coding assistant experience in a professional setting
Financial services background preferred; BCBS 239 awareness advantageous
Desirable skills include:
Data Vault 2.1 alongside Kimball/Star-schema modelling
Data mesh, data product ownership and federated governance
Knowledge graph platforms (Neo4j, Neptune) or knowledge of OWL, RDF and exposure to and build of ontologies
Published thought leadership or community contributions in data or AI
Work Authorization
Applicants must have the right to work in the United Kingdom at the time of application and for the duration of employment.
Please note that Northern Trust is unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role. This includes Skilled Worker visas, Global Business Mobility routes, Graduate visas, Youth Mobility Scheme, High Potential Individual visas, Scale-up Worker visas, Temporary Worker visas, and other employer-sponsored visa categories.
Working with Us
As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to an inclusive workplace and assisting the communities we serve.
Philanthropy is deeply rooted in Northern Trust’s history and is an essential element of our culture. Employees around the world give their time and talent to work for the greater good of their communities.
Reasonable Accommodation
Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing adjustments to individuals with health conditions and disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com, or alternatively you can discuss your individual requirements with the recruiter you are working with.