Maidenhead, United Kingdom | Posted on 13/08/2026
VE3 is a technology and business consultancyfocused on delivering end-to-end technology solutions and products. We havesuccessfully serviced enterprises across multiple markets, including the publicand private sectors. Our services span all aspects of business, providing aholistic approach to managing an organization. We are committed to providingtechnical innovations and tools that empower organizations with criticalinformation to facilitate decision-making that results in businesstransformation through cost savings and increased operational efficiency. Ourcommitment to quality is adopted throughout the organization and sets thefoundation for delivering our full suite of capabilities.
Job Description
Job Title : Lead Storage Data Architect
Experience : 5+ years
Job Type : Contract/Freelance
Lead the technical design of the future storage and data-management platform for file/HPC and block, and for the data-management layer. Own the current-state assessment, data profiling, options appraisal and target architecture for these areas, producing vendor-neutral, procurement-ready artefacts that stand up to competitive procurement and support a safe, phased migration.
Requirements
Key responsibilities
- Lead the current-state assessment of the file/HPC (PowerScale/Isilon) and block (PowerMax) estate – architecture, capacity, utilisation, performance, resilience and lifecycle.
- Profile unstructured and research data (volumes, file counts, age/heat) and produce data maps identifying tiering and archive candidates.
- Design the data-management and orchestration layer – cataloguing, tagging, policy-driven tiering, lifecycle and long-term retention aligned to funding-agency and compliance obligations.
- Ensure a fast on-premises tier for HPC where cloud latency and bandwidth are unsuitable, within an overall tiered architecture.
- Produce vendor-neutral options appraisals weighing performance, capacity, archive and cloud on a whole-life CapEx/OPEX basis.
- Develop high- and low-level designs (HLD/LLD) for the target storage architecture (design phase).
- Define storage and data-management requirements; contribute to the requirements and risk registers; facilitate technical workshops with client teams and the (virtual) storage SME.
- Contribute to the costed design-phase estimate and roadmap for the Discovery gate, and ensure designs are secure-by-design and migration-ready.
- Deliverables owned
Deliverables owned
- Current-state assessment for WS1, WS2 and WS4; data maps.
- Storage and data-management content of the Requirements Register and Risk Register.
- Options appraisal and target architecture (HLD/LLD) – design phase.
- Input to the Discovery Report and the design-phase estimate & plan.
Essential skills & experience
- Substantial experience designing enterprise storage at multi-petabyte scale, across both file and block.
- Deep, hands-on expertise with Dell PowerScale/Isilon and Dell PowerMax (or directly comparable scale-out NAS and enterprise block platforms).
- HPC / research-computing storage: parallel or scale-out file systems and high-throughput, low-latency workloads.
- Proven data-management design – cataloguing, tagging, policy tiering, lifecycle/retention and archive (object, tape/cold).
- Vendor-neutral architecture and options appraisal, with strong HLD/LLD documentation.
- Capacity and performance analysis from storage telemetry; whole-life cost modelling (CapEx vs OPEX).
- Hybrid-cloud storage awareness (e.g. object storage, Azure NetApp Files) and where cloud does and does not fit.
- Confident stakeholder engagement, workshop facilitation and clear technical writing.
- Higher-education or research-intensive environments; long-term funding-agency data-retention obligations.
- Producing vendor-neutral designs that feed competitive procurements.
- Data governance / classification frameworks; tape cold-storage archive projects.
Certifications (desirable
- Dell Technologies storage certifications (PowerScale/Isilon, PowerMax / PowerStore).
- Architecture framework such as TOGAF; Microsoft Azure fundamentals/associate.
Behaviour
- Evidence-led and consultative; comfortable challenging and being challenged (e.g. cloud-vs-on-prem for HPC) while staying vendor-neutral.
- Strong on-site collaborator who communicates clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
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