AI Data Architect (m/f/d)

WELCOME TO BASF Digital Hub Madrid attracts, grows, and develops passionate people who will meaningfully impact the digital future of BASF. Come join us and be a part of our digitalization journey.   Describe your Product Mission here / objective of the role: The AI & Automation Enablement team designs and engineers scalable AI and automation solutions that deliver measurable business value. By combining strong architecture, engineering excellence, and industrialization capabilities, we enable BASF to turn opportunities into production-ready systems – consistently, reliably, and at scale.  About the Job: AI Data Architect in a project-oriented team who designs scalable, enterprise-grade data architectures and leads the engineering of robust data platforms, collaborating across domains and teams to enable the development and industrialization of AI solutions that deliver measurable business value.  RESPONSIBILITIES Define and own the end-to-end data architecture for AI solutions, from ingestion and storage to serving layers powering models and analytics (e.g., batch pipelines, real-time APIs).  Design the data foundations for compound AI systems, including retrieval architectures (e.g. RAG), vector and knowledge stores, and feature/embedding layers.  Establish data modelling standards, semantic layers, and reusable reference architectures across workloads (batch, streaming, real-time, analytical, AI-driven) across the organization.  Define and enforce governance frameworks for data quality, lineage, security, and compliance, ensuring trustworthy and well-managed data products.  Set architectural guidelines and best practices for scalable data platforms and pipelines, and ensure their consistent adoption  Provide technical leadership and guidance to data engineers, data scientists, and business partners on data and AI architecture.  Evaluate emerging technologies and define the strategic roadmap for the data and AI platform.  Stay current with trends and best practices in data architecture, AI, and cloud platforms.  QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor’s degree or Master’s in computer science, Information Systems, or a related field.  5+ years of experience in data engineering and data architecture, including designing data models, platforms, and end-to-end data pipelines. Proven experience defining data architecture for AI/analytics solutions on a major cloud platform (Azure preferred; AWS a plus) and Big Data architectures.  Data architecture and modelling for relational and NoSQL systems, including modern storage paradigms (e.g., object storage, lakehouse, warehouse).  Design of scalable data platforms and architectural patterns (e.g., Lakehouse, Data Mesh, Medallion), including governance, lineage, and quality considerations.  Architecture of compound AI systems, including data layers for AI solutions (e.g., RAG, GraphRAG), vector stores, graph databases, and embedding pipelines.  Strong programming skills in…