Client: Government of Alberta Work Location : 9942 - 108 ST, Edmonton Alberta CAN, T5K 2J5, Remote Estimated Start Date : 02/01/2026

Estimated End Date: 31/12/2026

#Business Days : 241.00

Estimated Hours per Day: 7.25

Maximum Duration of Extension: 24 Months

Description Project Name:

• Data Management and Geospatial Services Platforms Continuous Improvement.

Scope

• The Data Applications and Geospatial unit within the Technology and Innovation (T&I) Ministry requires a resource to lead and support enhancements, sustainment, and development of the Azure-based data management platform. The resource will contribute to defining technology roadmaps and implementing key data opportunities for the Government of Alberta (GOA) enterprise.
• The candidate will define the vision, roadmap, and execution strategy for an enterprise-scale data platform built on Azure and Databricks. Collaborating with Service Owners, Directors, and cross-functional business stakeholders, the consultant will ensure platform capabilities, data products, and AI-driven automation align with organizational objectives and long-term strategies.
• This role will oversee how data is ingested, governed, transformed, and delivered across the enterprise, driving consistency, scalability, and trusted data use for system integrations, analytics, reporting, operational decision-making and AI workloads. As a strategic advisor, the consultant will also identify and introduce opportunities to use AI for accelerating data engineering, such as automated pipeline generation, metadata-driven frameworks, adaptive data quality. The consultant will bridge business priorities with technical execution, contributing to the future direction of the organization’s data ecosystem.
• The ideal candidate will have hands-on expertise in designing and implementing cloud-native data architectures using Azure and Databricks. Responsibilities include architecting and building data lake environments Delta Lake, and Medallion architectures, as well as developing scalable ingestion and transformation pipelines using Databricks, Azure Data Factory, APIs, and integrations with platforms like ServiceNow, TALEND. Expertise in cluster configuration, workflow orchestration, DataOps, schema management, and performance optimization is essential. The consultant will implement data quality frameworks, robust security models, and monitoring via Azure Monitor. Additionally, they will define reusable engineering frameworks and integration patterns to ensure secure, efficient, and scalable enterprise data operations.

Duties

• Provides leadership, direction, and advice on the Data Management Platform and Geospatial Services Platform Improvements and Sustainment. Services and project deliverables should evolve as the work progresses, in response to emerging user and business needs, as well as design and technical opportunities. However, the following must be delivered (iteratively) over the course of the project:

Strategic Leadership & Collaboration

• Define the strategic vision and multi-year roadmap for the enterprise Data Management Platform, ensuring alignment with business objectives and the organization’s data and AI strategy.
• Work closely with Service Owners, Service Directors, and senior leadership to prioritize platform capabilities, guide investment decisions, and shape long-term modernization initiatives.
• Translate organizational goals into executable platform strategies, influencing enterprise architecture, data governance, and AI enablement across business units.
• Drive enterprise adoption of the data platform by enabling self-service capabilities, standardizing data products, and improving cross-functional usability for analytics and AI teams.

Technical Architecture & Engineering Execution

• Architect and implement cloud-native data solutions leveraging Azure and Databricks, including Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and Medallion architectures.
• Lead the design and development of scalable ingestion, transformation, and orchestration pipelines using Databricks, Azure Data Factory, APIs, Event Hub, Functions, and other Azure services.
• Establish and enforce enterprise-wide data governance, security, and compliance frameworks, including RBAC/ABAC, encryption practices, Key Vault, and secure networking standards.
• Implement robust DataOps practices and CI/CD automation for Databricks workflows, notebooks, Unity Catalog assets, and Azure data pipelines.
• Optimize performance and cost efficiency across Databricks clusters, ETL workloads, Delta Lake storage, and Azure resources.

AI Enablement & Automation

• Identify opportunities to introduce AI-driven automation into data engineering, such as automated pipeline generation, anomaly detection, intelligent observability, and generative code scaffolding.
• Lead proofs of concept and evaluate new Azure, Databricks, and AI capabilities, recommending adoption paths for technologies that enhance scalability, automation, and platform intelligence.

Team Enablement & Mentorship

• Mentor, coach, and develop data engineers and platform team members, ensuring adherence to best practices, strong engineering standards, and continuous learning.
• Provide architectural guidance and technical leadership to teams building data products, analytics solutions, AI workloads, and integration patterns using the enterprise data platform.
• This role may be required to coach and mentor staff on service innovation and data initiatives.

Note The resource will primarily work remotely but must be available for on-site meetings as required. These meetings may involve strategic, analytical, or technical discussions and may include engagement with team members, senior managers, directors, executive directors, or business clients.

Working Hours

• Standard Hours of work are 08:15 – 16:30 Alberta time, Monday through Friday excluding holidays observed by the Province
• Work must be done from within Canada, due to network and data security issues.
• It is anticipated the role will be 100% remote, however in the event of an onsite meeting, the GoA does not pay for travel to attend on-site meetings, nor any expenses related to relocation, commuting, housing/accommodation, food/drink.

Eligibility and Application Steps If you are enthusiastic about this exciting opportunity, we kindly request you to provide the following documents: hrsmss@smsoftconsulting.com

Without mandatory documents, we cannot submit a candidate.

• Updated Resume in word format (Mandatory)
• Skills Matrix and References (Mandatory)
• Expected hourly rate (Mandatory)
• Visa Status (Mandatory)
• LinkedIn ID (Mandatory)

Please only apply if you meet the qualifications mentioned above. Feel free to share with your network or tag someone who fits for this role! If you have any questions or need further clarification, feel free to call or text at (647) 408-1348.