Data and Systems Architect

Job Description

Who We Are 

Clean Power Alliance (CPA) is Southern California’s locally operated not-for-profit default electricity provider for 38 communities within Los Angeles and Ventura counties and the 4th largest electricity provider in the State of California. We provide clean renewable energy at competitive rates to over three million residents and businesses through approximately one million customer accounts. 

What You’ll Do 

CPA is seeking an experienced, detail-oriented, and enthusiastic professional to join our growing team as Data and Systems Architect. The Data and Systems Architect will design, optimize, and govern modern cloud based data platforms with a strong emphasis on performance, scalability, and cost efficiency. This role will lead architecture decisions across Snowflake, AWS, Databricks, and Tableau, ensuring the organization maximizes the value of its data investments while maintaining predictable and sustainable platform costs. 

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise with financial discipline, understands cloud consumption-based pricing models, and proactively designs architectures that balance business needs with cost control. 

Who You’ll Work With 

The Data and Systems Architect reports to the Director, Data & Systems and is supported by a team of technology professionals, along with external stakeholders, consultants, our data manager, and our business partner, Southern California Edison (SCE). The Data and Systems Architect works closely with the Energy Risk Management, Finance, Power Supply, and Customer Care teams and will stay current with CPA’s core business by continuously collaborating with teams overseeing Communications and Marketing, Government Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, and Rates and Strategy.   

Commitment to Diversity  

At CPA, we value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We represent a diverse customer base and intend to hire employees that reflect our communities. Clean Power Alliance provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.  

Culture  

CPA fosters a culture of open communication, responsibility, intellectual curiosity, and exceptional judgment. As a small team that has quickly built the largest Community Choice Aggregation program in the country, high levels of trust, collaboration, and mission alignment are key factors in success. We value fact-based creativity in our work, accountability with our stakeholders, and promote ethical engagement and diversity with our brand.  

Requirements

• Strong hands‑on experience with Snowflake, including performance tuning and cost optimization. 

• Mastery of Python.  

• Deep understanding of AWS pricing models and architectural tradeoffs. 

• Proven experience designing and operating Databricks workloads cost‑effectively. 

• Advanced SQL and strong data modeling expertise. 

• Experience enabling BI platforms with Tableau preferred. 

• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite. 

• Ability to act with integrity, professionalism, and confidentiality.  

• Ability to fully own tasks and processes with minimal oversight. 

• Ability to handle multiple priorities to meet deadlines and escalate key issues.  

• Proficient with data visualization tools and software (i.e., Tableau, Power BI). 

• Well-versed in cloud environments, data engineering, systems engineering and operations, best-practice data governance and security, data privacy regulations, and interface strategies. 

• Deep understanding of the interactions between systems and how business processes are enabled and impacted by those systems. 

• Experience or course work with Cloud platform data services including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure; cloud platform data storage and management tools; Linux configuration; SQL databases.   

Duties and Responsibilities 

• Data Architecture & Platform Design: Design and maintain end-to-end data architectures for analytics, reporting, and advanced data use cases across Snowflake, AWS, Databricks, and Tableau. Define architectural standards and reference patterns that optimize performance, scale, and total cost of ownership. Lead architectural decisions for Snowflake, Databricks, and AWS, including storage, compute separation, and workload isolation strategies. Continuously evaluate and refine architectures to prevent overprovisioning and uncontrolled cloud spend. Create and maintain architecture design documentation. 

• Systems Management and Oversight: Design Snowflake architectures that optimize warehouse sizing, concurrency, auto‑suspend/resume, clustering, and data retention. Implement Databricks cost controls including cluster policies, job optimization, workload separation, and efficient Spark configurations. Architect AWS solutions with careful consideration of storage tiers, lifecycle policies, and usage‑based services. Manage data storage and backup and recovery operations. Manage individual product updates, cybersecurity and IT policies, and management and control of data throughout the enterprise. Source project staff and consultants and oversee performance evaluation. 

• Cost Optimization: Monitor performance of cloud systems to determine cost and productivity levels and to make recommendations for improving the IT infrastructure. Administer cloud-based infrastructure including identity and access management, user permissions, and billing optimization. Manage data storage and access needs, create and maintain databases, and upgrade database systems and software.  

• Continuous Improvement: Create, enhance, document, and manage continuous improvement initiatives across data architectures. Responsible for identifying inefficiencies, proposing solutions to senior leadership, and leading the implementation of new tools, automation, and reporting frameworks that enable the team to scale and improve various systems. 

• Perform other duties as assigned. 

Successful Candidates Must Demonstrate the Following Abilities: 

• Demonstrate good judgment and integrity 

• High attention to detail with strong organizational skills 

• Communicate effectively, orally, and in writing; and the ability to translate complex technical information into non-technical language 

• Have a strong work ethic and be comfortable taking initiative/working in a fast paced, start-up environment 

• Work well on diverse teams and be highly collaborative 

• Must be able to work at a desk and on a computer for prolonged periods 

Qualifications 

• Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, information systems, or a related field and a minimum of 5 years of experience in data design, management, and storage work 

• A Master’s Degree and start-up experience is highly desired. 

Work Location 

This position is eligible for either Hybrid or Remote options. The Hybrid option requires 2-3 assigned full-time days in the Downtown Los Angeles office and includes a transportation allowance. The Remote & Hybrid options require full-time in-person attendance at organization or team-wide events 3 times per year for 3-5 days per event. All staff are required to work during CPA’s office hours Monday-Friday 8:30am-5:30pm PST.       

Benefits

The salary range for this position is $158,711.06-$238,065.55, with exact compensation to be determined by Clean Power Alliance, dependent on experience.  Benefits include health care, a 401(k)-like match program, paid vacation, and sick leave. This is not a civil service position; however, all CPA employees are required to submit a Statement of Economic Interests form, also known as the Form 700. 

How to Apply 

Candidates should apply on CPA’s Career Page. The start date for the position is as soon as possible and will remain open until filled.