Senior Data Architect at Hightower
Chicago, IL
$150,000–$175,000from the description
Jun 30, 2026
Chicago, IL
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual contributor role focused on designing and maintaining an enterprise-wide data architecture at a wealth management firm. Day-to-day work centers on data modeling across conceptual, logical, and physical layers, driving Master Data Management strategy, and administering the Collibra platform for governance, lineage, and data quality. The role also involves integrating tools such as Snowflake and DBT, and advising both technical and business stakeholders on architecture standards and best practices.
Senior level · 8+ years · Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 30 people in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (database architects). range 15–45
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $150,733 (middle half $127,994–$171,827). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The JD lists a Bachelor's or Master's degree but also accepts 'related field' and does not explicitly reject candidates without a degree — however, it is framed as a hard requirement. Because no 'or equivalent experience' language is present, this is a genuine degree gate; that said, the degree field is set to Bachelors (the minimum stated) rather than Masters.
Cloud platform requirement is stated as 'Azure, AWS, or GCP' — Azure is listed first and the firm is Microsoft-ecosystem-adjacent (Azure is the most common in financial services), but all three are genuine alternatives.
dbt and Snowflake appear in the responsibilities section ('Integrate DBT with Collibra and Snowflake') rather than a formal requirements block. dbt is framed as an integration task the role will perform, suggesting working knowledge is expected; Snowflake appears as the target platform but is not explicitly called out as a standalone requirement — marked preferred accordingly.
Experience with financial or wealth management data is explicitly flagged as 'preferred,' not required.
The role is hybrid (Mon–Thu onsite in Chicago, Fri remote) — not fully remote.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): Collibra Unified Data Quality, Master Data Management.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.