Data & Analytics Solution Architect (For independent contractors)

Role Description

As a Financial Systems (FS) Data & Analytics Solution Architect, you are responsible for the data and analytics architecture supporting the financial core processes across the different Booking brands. This requires balancing the solidity expected of a finance backend with the flexibility to create innovative products for bookers and partners. You bring expert knowledge, experience and strong communication skills. You work closely with the different development teams to make this a reality and are part of the architecture team designing the future of FS.

The Architect supports the broader architecture function, partnering with other architects and engineering teams to promote best practices, contribute to architectural reviews, and ensure solutions are scalable, reusable, and governed, with compliance and data quality built in by design.

The Data & Analytics Solution Architect is responsible for the design and implementation of end-to-end data and analytics solutions that align with business goals, regulatory requirements, and enterprise IT standards. This role bridges the gap between Finance domain experts, data and engineering teams, and other domain architects to deliver scalable, compliant, and efficient data solutions across transactional, operational, and analytical systems.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties

Strategize

• Support Data & Analytics architecture strategy in alignment with the Business goals.

  
  

• Contribute to multi-layer/multi-technological data architecture governance: develops, communicates and ensures adherence to architecture processes, principles, policies and standards for the enterprise.

  
  

• Support the implementation of the data architecture roadmap for designated product tracks, in or outside the Financial platform (SAP) but always connected to it.

  
  

• Contribute to defining data-sharing strategies across systems, selecting appropriate patterns, with data product thinking and data contracts embedded by design to support different use cases.

  
  

• Support the design and documentation of scalable, secure, and high-performing data architectures for Finance reporting and analytics.

  
  

• Ensure architectural alignment with the ERP ecosystem, data models, and governance standards.

Innovate

• Collect research on best practices, business processes, and procedures in data and analytics.

  
  

• Identify emerging technologies and patterns that can enable the overall business architecture.

  
  

• Contribute to the development of proof of concepts and prototypes to evaluate data products, analytics across different platforms, and emerging AI capabilities.

  
  

• Stay up to date with evolving regulatory requirements and ensure solutions support compliance.

Architect

• Define development guidelines and standards to be utilized in data ingestion, transformation, and consumption across Finance domains.

  
  

• Analyze the current IT ecosystem to identify weaknesses and develop opportunities for improvements.

  
  

• Define transition steps and support strategy from the current to the future architecture.

  
  

• Analyze high-level feasibility of business requirements concerning data and analytics solutions.

  
  

• Develop conceptual and logical data models, applying appropriate modeling methodologies and architectural patterns.

  
  

• Define end-to-end data flows across transactional, operational, and analytical systems.

  
  

• Contribute to both conceptual and detailed architecture across SAP-native models, cloud data platforms, and analytics tools.

  
  

• Contribute to data governance including data quality, lineage, and cataloging, authorization and access models, and data products and contracts.

  
  

• Develop and maintain data architecture models, processes, and documentation.

Deliver

• Identify system requirements for SAP and non-SAP data and analytics components.

  
  

• Reviews data requirements across multiple applications and domains, and develops data models that span systems and business domains.

  
  

• Support implementation of data pipelines and transformations.

  
  

• Contribute to performance optimization initiatives, support definition of SLOs and SLAs.

  
  

• Contribute to the identification of opportunities (processes, people) to improve project delivery and/or development methodologies.

Technology, Craft & Deliver

• [5+ years] of relevant working experience in data architecture, data engineering, or analytics roles.

  
  

• [5+ years] of hands-on experience with SAP environments.

  
  

• Strong hands-on experience with SAP S/4HANA, SAP HANA and ABAP CDS, SAP BDC (SAP Datasphere), and SAP Analytics Cloud.

  
  

• Experience with modern data platforms such as Snowflake and AWS data services.

  
  

• Experience with high-volume data processing and reporting at scale.

  
  

• Strong skills in SQL.

  
  

• Experience with dbt, Apache Airflow, and Apache Spark is a plus.

  
  

• Experience in data platform design, including architectural patterns ( data warehouse, data lake(house) architectures ), and data modeling methodologies (e.g. dimensional modeling, Data Vault).

  
  

• Strong understanding of data modeling (conceptual, logical, physical), data sharing patterns, and data mesh principles (e.g. domain-oriented ownership, data as a product, and federated governance).

  
  

• Familiarity with Enterprise architecture frameworks (e.g. TOGAF), data governance and quality frameworks (e.g. DAMA-DMBOK), authorization and security models, data privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR ) and controls (e.g., SOX) are a plus.

  
  

• Strong communicator who is able to build a strong network within the organization and serve as a trusted partner for stakeholders across engineering, data, and business teams.