Senior Data Architect London, United Kingdom Information Technology

At PMI, we’ve chosen to do something incredible. We’re totally redefining our business, and building our future on smoke-free products with the power to improve the lives of a billion smokers worldwide.

With huge change, comes huge opportunity. So, wherever you join us, you’ll enjoy the freedom to dream up and deliver better, brighter solutions and the space to move your career forward in endlessly new directions.

PMI’s journey to a smoke-free future is fuelled by technology.

The total transformation we’re going through means that there are unique IT projects here to match all levels of skills and ambitions – from pace-setting global pilot projects to vital local updates. Whether you want to pursue a personal passion or build an international career, there’s space here to develop in any number of directions.

To join us in IT you’ll need to be driven and equally happy whether you’re taking the strategic view or diving deep into processes. We’ll make sure you’re set up to succeed whatever your project is, our culture is agile and collaborative, and we genuinely believe our people are some of the best you’ll ever work with.

The Enterprise Analytics and Data (EAD) team is redefining Philip Morris into a company where decision-making process is driven by data. This Team is comprised of 4 specialty pillars namely, Data Management and Governance, Data Architecture and Data Strategy, Data Science and Business Intelligence. We also have an Analytics Delivery Team that helps to orchestrate and choreograph project/program delivery acting as liaison for all analytics delivery related initiatives.

We are looking for a Senior Data Architect for Cognitive Services specializing in the Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Natural Language Generation (NLG) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) domain to be part of the Data Architecture and Data Strategy Team in EAD. The Data Architecture and Data Strategy Team are accountable for leading the vision, roadmap and strategy for PMI. The primary goal of the team is to design, build and deliver fit-for-purpose, sustainable and adaptable architectures that will enable PMI to achieve its mission of a smoke-free future. We aim to do this by relying on and investing heavily in technology, process and data innovation whilst remaining secure, stable, resilient and assuring value for money across our delivery pipeline.

A key focus for us here is an emphasis on reusable and innovative architectures bringing value and innovation to PMI. This is a leadership role where you will be expected to lead, define and drive business value propositions based on the power of AI based NLP services for PMI.

The ideal candidate will have the required skills and potential to transform the approach to architecting our next generation of customer facing interactions across PMI and thus reduce duplication and incoherence in our current ecosystem. You will be a key member of the Data Architecture and Data Strategy Team and will work closely with our business architect and a core team of enterprise data architects to ensure your proposed technical and data architecture for cognitive services is in full alignment with our underlying business and technical strategic drivers and challenges faced by PMI.

The vision we pursue is to have a robust, reliable portfolio of NLP services (Digital Assistants, Chatbots, Recommenders etc.) that can be rolled out as part of our value chain for our partners across functions and markets to benefit from. This role will be responsible for leading that vision and defining/delivering the roadmap to get us there. To succeed in this role, you will need a healthy mix of critical thinking, deep hands-on experience of modern data and technology architecture practices deployed on the cloud and a sound understanding of the various best practices and current trends in the NLP architecture domain.

The preferred candidate is ideally passionate, curious, and highly focused architect who can work collaboratively with a number of Business and IT partner teams in a collaborative manner to ensure value for money architecture that meets the underlying needs of the wider partner landscape. Within IT, the wider EAD Data Management Team and EAD Business Intelligence & Analytics Teams will be responsible for the stakeholder pack closely followed by the Platform architecture and data engineering teams who will rely on your expertise to ensure they are building the appropriate structures based on your design.

The day-to-day responsibilities are to be carried out against the primary backdrop of both global and local transactional and ERP systems with a cloud-based advanced analytics platform also part of this ecosystem. These are supported by state-of-the-art technologies (AWS, Wherescape, Snowflake, AWS Sagemaker, EMR) and methodologies (Data Vault 2.0, SAFe, Scrum) enabling key transformation initiatives.

Job requirements

• Solid understanding of the current AI, machine learning and deep learning state of the art.
• Solid understanding of one or more modern programming languages used in machine learning and deep learning APIs such as Python or Java.
• Experience in the design and implementation of complex IoT applications or services
• Understanding of RESTful architectures and data design patterns
• An understanding of the cloud computing model as it relates to IoT and Conversational AI
• Experience with Event-based applications using publish/subscribe style of communication to signal events/situations and receive notifications
• Hands-on experience with Amazon Web Services
• Demonstrable knowledge of Data architectures that support conversational analytics.
• Leadership role in the development and application of Conversational Analytics and UI architecture and design standards; promoting best practice within the NLP domain
• Assessing for value-for-money options with the appropriate mix of build/buy options considering strategic direction, business flexibility and emerging disruptive technologies.
• Develops plans, designs and drawings that take the NLP vision from idea to reality
• Deliver adaptable, scalable solutions for the cognitive services domain
• Understand the asset landscape within the area that you support
• Identify gaps and potential fragilities and support the development of appropriate solutions; including working with external suppliers to align requirements with solutions
• Recognize/Seize the opportunities presented in this space and take the initiative in designing and proposing innovative solutions to solve complex technical problems.
• Lead, Collaborate, Coordinate efforts with engineering and product management teams

Functional Competency

• Deep understanding of the Cognitive Services Landscape focusing on the Conversational AI space.
• Excellent partner leadership skills with the ability to translate technical complexities into business-friendly language using both conceptual and logical thinking.
• Strategic ability to relate the current technology and application landscape to the evolving business needs and identify the data architecture gaps.
• Experience of working with broader architecture community (EA, SA, AA)
• Understanding of modern data architectures, data extract mechanisms, functional decomposition and business rules engines.
• Experience with SCRUM methodology and/or following an agile approach
• Self-starter with strong analytical and problem-solving skills from a business perspective.
• Good interpersonal, leadership, organizational and project management skills
• Evangelist and Advocate for Conversational AI and Knowledge Graphs across the organization
• Experience with SAFe & Knowledge of about BI and Big DATA ecosystems (S3, Scala, Spark)
• Knowledge of Snowflake, WhereScape and PowerDesigner
• Experience of working within a large, complex and geographically dispersed Program.
• Comfortable with agile development methodologies.
• Solid understanding of Jira and Confluence is desired.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Degree in Information Systems, Linguistics or equivalent professional experience
• 3+ years of relevant work experience working in Linguistics, ontology and/or taxonomy roles
• Proven skills in data retrieval and data research techniques
• Ability to quickly understand complex processes and communicate them in simple language
• Ability to communicate knowledge-based requirements and needs to engineer and retail teams
• Familiarity with Semantic Web technologies (RDF/s, OWL), query languages (SPARQL) and validation/reasoning standards that support an integrated NLP design
• Knowledge of open-source and commercial NLP vendors
• Diligent problem-solving, ability to work in constantly evolving environment and handle ambiguity
• Proven track record of strong communication and social skills

What we offer
Our success depends on the people who come to work every single day with a sense of purpose and an appetite for progress. Join PMI and you too can:

• Seize the freedom to define your future and ours – we’ll empower you to do things differently, experiment and explore
• Be part of an inclusive, diverse culture, where everyone’s contribution is respected; collaborate with some of the world’s best people and feel like you belong
• Pursue your ambitions and develop your skills with a global business – our staggering size and scale provides endless opportunities to progress
• Take pride in delivering our promise to society: to improve the lives of a billion smokers