Storytelling is, and will always be, the heart of what we do at Skydance. Our vision is to build a thriving entertainment ecosystem where stories and worlds are imagined, brought to life and experienced. We create for every age and audience, anchored by the strength of our content and experiences and the depth of our connection with fans. We are creator-first, audience-focused, tech-forward, globally scaled.
Here, you'll work with talented teams that move fast, think boldly and collaborate with purpose to deliver results. We aim high, champion the best ideas and win together, earning the trust of our employees, creators, partners and audiences every day.
If you're energized by the opportunity to help build the next-generation global media and entertainment company powered by creativity and technology, we'd be thrilled to welcome you aboard. LET'S GO!
We are the now and the next. The power behind the people building the future. We are born from the spirit of innovation. We are created from the idea that people around the world want more, need more, deserve more. We are the home of the global digital revolution. We are CNN.
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To see what it's like to work at CNN, follow @WBDLife on Instagram and X!
We are CNN. The world's most essential and engaging source of digital news. We are in the midst of rapid transformation and are looking for the next generation of innovators, makers, and dreamers to help lead our growth and shape the future of news.
Your New Role...The Staff Data Architect plays a critical, hands-on role in evolving and strengthening CNN's modern data ecosystem. This is a platform-focused role for a senior technologist who thrives at scale-designing and implementing robust, performant, and governed data architecture that powers analytics, reporting, and decision-making across the organization.
You'll combine deep technical expertise with practical leadership, helping define architecture and modeling standards, mentoring engineers and analysts, and partnering closely with platform and analytics teams to deliver reliable, scalable data systems. This role is ideal for someone passionate about improving time-to-insight, driving metric consistency, and building trusted semantic data models across a high-impact analytics platform.
Your Role Accountabilities...- Design and implement scalable data architecture patterns on Snowflake to support high-volume event and analytics workloads, with a strong focus on performance, security, and cost efficiency through query optimization, warehouse sizing, storage management, and governance best practices.
- Lead the technical design and implementation of complex data systems and platform enhancements, establishing and maintaining architecture and data modeling standards that promote consistency, scalability, and reliability across Snowflake and dbt workflows.
- Define and implement secure, scalable data access patterns, leveraging role-based access control and managed access schemas to ensure data is governed, auditable, and accessible to the right audiences.
- Design and operate data quality and observability frameworks, using dbt tests and monitoring tools to track pipeline health, latency, and freshness, and to continuously improve platform reliability and operational visibility.
- Partner closely with platform engineering and analytics teams to improve system reliability, scalability, and operational efficiency, contributing to platform architecture planning and technical roadmaps.
- Translate complex analytics and business requirements into clean, well-governed semantic data models that enable trusted self-service analytics and consistent metrics across BI tools.
- Define and implement data lifecycle and retention strategies that balance performance, cost efficiency, compliance, and data availability across the analytics platform.
- Act as a technical mentor and thought leader, helping grow the skills of engineers and analysts and raising the overall bar for data architecture and engineering practices.
Qualifications & Experience...- 5-8 years of experience in data engineering, data architecture, or a related field, with demonstrated ownership of production data systems or platform components.
- Deep expertise in cloud data warehousing, with hands-on experience in Snowflake, including performance tuning, security design, cost optimization, and large-scale data modeling.
- Strong experience designing and maintaining dbt-based transformation workflows, including testing, performance optimization, and deployment best practices.
- Experience working with event or clickstream data, ideally using Snowplow or comparable technologies, and a strong understanding of instrumentation and processing challenges at scale.
- Proven ability to design and implement semantic layers and analytics-ready data models that serve as a trusted source of truth for BI tools such as Looker, Tableau, or Domo.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences, influence architectural decisions, and build alignment across teams.
Nice to Haves...- Experience with Customer Data Platforms (CDPs).
- Experience with data orchestration tools such as Airflow or Dagster.
- Familiarity with data privacy and compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, CCPA).
- Experience working in the media, publishing, or digital content industry.
About SkydanceSkydance is a next-generation global media and entertainment company, comprised of three business segments: Studios, Direct-to-Consumer, and TV Media. Skydance's portfolio unites legendary brands, including Paramount, Warner Bros., HBO and HBO Max, Paramount+, Pluto TV, CBS, CNN, CBS Sports, TNT Sports, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, MTV, Food Network, BET, HGTV, and Comedy Central.
Some Important DetailsWe embrace the opportunity to build a workforce that reflects a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds and experiences. Being an equal opportunity employer means that we take seriously our responsibility to consider qualified candidates on the basis of merit. In line with the laws of the country or region in which the role is based, this includes consideration without regard to race, color, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, religion or belief, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or protected veteran status, union status or any other category protected by applicable law.
If you're a qualified candidate with a disability and you require adjustments or accommodations during the job application and/or recruitment process, please visit our
accessibility page for instructions to submit your request.
Hiring Salary Range: $136,500.00 - $253,500.00 per year
In compliance with local law, we are disclosing compensation, or a range thereof, for roles where legally required. Actual salaries will vary based on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, external market data, internal equity, skill set, experience, training, education, and/or performance. Base pay is just one component of our total compensation package. Other rewards may include annual bonuses, short- and long-term incentives, and program-specific awards. In addition, Warner Bros. Discovery provides a variety of benefits to employees, including health insurance coverage, an employee wellness program, life and disability insurance, a retirement savings plan, paid holidays and sick time and vacation.
