Title: Data Architect
Louisville, KY, US, 40222
ABOUT CHURCHILL DOWNS INC.
Headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, Churchill Downs Incorporated has expanded through the development of live and historical racing entertainment venues, the growth of the TwinSpires horse racing online wagering business and the operation and development of regional casino gaming properties. Churchill Downs Incorporated is an inclusive and fun place to work. We celebrate unique approaches and points of view. We believe diversity is a mindset that drives excellence. We’re always learning, evolving and growing. We innovate through mutual respect of ideas and collaboration. This allows us to build a common language that inspires our team members and propels us toward the achievement of our vision.
CHURCHILL DOWNS INCORPORATED
Churchill Downs Incorporated is an industry-leading racing, online wagering and gaming entertainment company anchored by our iconic flagship event - The Kentucky Derby. We own and operate Derby City Gaming, a historical racing machine facility in Louisville, Kentucky. We also own and operate the largest online horse racing wagering platform in the U.S., TwinSpires.com.. We are also a leader in brick-and-mortar casino gaming with approximately 11,000 slot machines and video lottery terminals and 200 table games in eight states. Apply today!
JOB SUMMARY
We are seeking a skilled Data Architect/Modeler to design and implement extensible data solutions that bridge the gap between business strategy and technical execution. This role plays a critical part in ensuring our data is accessible, scalable, and aligned with reporting and analytics needs.
You will balance strategic planning and hands-on work, driving solution design, data modeling, and requirements gathering while also working directly with data using SQL and other technologies. Your work will shape how business teams’ access and utilize data, influencing key decisions and long-term data infrastructure strategy.
Additionally, your contributions will be instrumental in evolving our reporting ecosystem, supporting the growth of our self-serve business analytics and providing the foundation for machine learning (ML), and structured data LLM projects. This is a high-impact role with significant influence over the future of our data landscape.
Our Team
We are an Agile Scrum team composed of 6 Data Engineers, 3 QA Analysts, 3 Front-End Developers, a System Administrator, a Product Owner, and a Scrum Master. Over the past few years, we’ve steadily expanded to support the rapid growth of our terrestrial (brick and mortar) gaming business, which continues to scale through both organic expansion and acquisitions.
We recently transitioned our data engineering layer to Snowflake and dbt, establishing a scalable foundation for data processing and transformation. While we currently utilize an on-premise MicroStrategy environment with a robust semantic layer, we are actively exploring modern cloud-based BI solutions to expand and enhance our reporting capabilities.
This is an exciting time to join our team, as we continue to push the boundaries of cloud-based data solutions and drive meaningful innovation across the organization.
This role is perfect for someone who enjoys solving complex data challenges, balancing business and technical constraints, and driving strategic data initiatives forward.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
- Collaborate with stakeholders (BI developers, product owners, analysts, and leadership) to define data accessibility and usability requirements for reporting and analytics.
- Effectively communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences—translating complex data concepts into simple, business-friendly terms. Create artifacts and processes in direct support of implementation and provide oversite to other developers implementing the design.
- Design and implement data models, define relationships between entities and ensuring data normalization for extensibility in both the data and reporting layers.
- Collaborate within the development team to ensure that the logical and conceptual data models you produce are implemented effectively in front front-end structures (e.g., semantic layers, cubes).
- Evaluate and communicate trade-offs between different data architecture approaches to stakeholders and developers.
- Develop and refine semantic models to support business reporting objectives.
- Provide thought leadership on balancing scalability, efficiency, and speed to market.
- Create prototypes and mockups to facilitate stakeholder feedback and ensure alignment between business goals and technical execution.
- Map business processes to data structures, visualizing how data flows through the organization.
- Ensure that data models are flexible and scalable to accommodate future business needs.
EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE
- Bachelor's or Master’s in Computer Science, Data Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
- 5+ years designing conceptual, logical, and physical data models.
- Strong knowledge of normalization, dimensional modeling, and data warehousing best practices.
- Experience iteratively expanding large and complex data models
- Experience with a modern cloud-based data platform (e.g., Snowflake, Redshift, BigQuery, or Azure Synapse).
- Hands-on experience with ETL/ELT tools (e.g., dbt, Azure data factory, Informatica, Talend, Fivetran).
- Experience with Semantic modeling in BI or AI platforms.
- Familiarity with BI tools like MicroStrategy, Sigma, Tableau, Power BI, Looker, or ThoughtSpot.
- Knowledge of data governance best practices
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or disability.
Nearest Major Market: Louisville