Hi, I’m
JAY BURGESS
Los Angeles,CA
Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s leaving home, whether it’s getting married, or whether it’s flying into space.
Chris Hadfield
Summary
Principal Solutions Architect with senior-level experience delivering data and AI solutions in regulated enterprise environments. Led the design and deployment of ReggieAI at HEAG, generating $2.7M impact in six months, and rebuilt financial aid funding systems for thousands of families, improving compliance and efficiency. Skilled in executive advisory, Python, SQL, Azure, Databricks, and Microsoft Fabric. Seeking to apply architecture expertise to drive measurable outcomes and scalable, governed solutions.
Overview
17
years of professional experience
1
Certificate
4
Education Degrees
1
Jay Burgess
Work History
Higher Education Assistance Group (HEAG)
Principal Solutions Architect - Data Science & AI
11.2024 - Current
Job overview
- Serving as the organization's primary solutions architect - diagnosing operational problems across financial aid workflows, designing and engineering data and AI systems to solve them, and governing the full delivery lifecycle across a team of 3–4 engineers and analysts.
- Owned all technology selection decisions, evaluating Azure, Databricks, and open-source frameworks against compliance, scalability, and regulatory criteria, then designed and implemented the chosen architecture, which delivered a compliant, scalable platform adopted across the organization.
- Architected and engineered ReggieAI from scratch - a production-grade governed AI decision platform on Databricks with human-in-the-loop controls, citation governance, and compliance workflows that eliminated manual decision bottlenecks.
- Designed and built a custom Jira-style project and ticket management platform from scratch, creating a structured delivery system for development and consulting workflows across the team.
- Wrote full-stack code in Python and SQL, refactored legacy modules, integrated REST APIs, and built front-end components - delivering solutions end to end without dependency on external development resources.
- Authored QA test specifications, performed code reviews, and enforced engineering standards ensuring every solution released was production-grade and compliance-ready.
- Delivered $2.7 M in operational and financial benefits within six months by architecting governed analytics and AI execution systems from the ground up.
Walmart Creative
Senior Data Scientist - Creative Operations
11.2023 - 10.2024
Job overview
- Brought in as the sole analytics architect to solve a fragmented data problem across Walmart Creative - assessed the environment, designed a unified platform solution, and built it end to end across 7 teams.
- Designed and built a unified analytics platform in Databricks and Microsoft Fabric, which was adopted by seven teams and lifted project completion rates by 37%.
- Defined KPI certification standards, conformed dimension structures, and a single source of truth for campaign performance - architecting the data foundation the organization had been missing.
- Developed predictive models in Python and scikit-learn, advancing the analytics capability from descriptive reporting into anomaly detection, pattern recognition, and forward-looking performance analysis.
- Built Power BI semantic models with standardized relationships and calculation logic, designing a self-service layer that enabled teams to answer their own questions without analyst dependency.
- Architected Azure SQL infrastructure with indexing and partitioning optimizations, solving query performance bottlenecks and accelerating data delivery to downstream consumers.
Adobe
Senior Analyst - Marketing Operations
10.2022 - 10.2023
Job overview
- Brought in to solve an enterprise-scale data integrity problem - redesigned the analytics governance architecture for Adobe's global marketing data infrastructure, protecting decision quality across approximately $6B in annual marketing spend.
- Diagnosed a 3-week executive reporting bottleneck and redesigned the data validation and pipeline architecture in Databricks, cutting decision turnaround time by 86% and lowering data error rates to 0.5%.
- Designed and implemented data quality monitoring and anomaly detection solutions using Microsoft Fabric, architecting an early-warning system that surfaced risks before they reached executive review cycles.
- Solved cross-functional metric inconsistency by redesigning pipeline definitions and reconciliation logic - delivering a governed, auditable architecture that finance, marketing, and engineering stakeholders could trust.
- Stabilized Marketo and financial data pipelines by designing validation workflow solutions that prevented metric drift across a global marketing organization managing $6B in spend.
- Remote
P3 Cost Analysts
Solution Architect - Revenue & Analytics
11.2019 - 10.2022
Job overview
- Designed and delivered revenue analytics solutions for a national cost consulting firm's client base of 75 accounts - translating complex client business problems into data-driven systems that directly improved financial outcomes.
- Architected and delivered analytics solutions across 75 client accounts, designing pricing, forecasting, and profitability frameworks that drove a 78% revenue improvement.
- Designed forecasting and pricing models on AI-assisted platforms, architecting solutions that converted raw client data into directly actionable executive intelligence - not standalone reports.
- Built and directed a team of 4 analytics contributors, designing the delivery framework, data models, and quality standards that governed consistent solution output across all client engagements.
- Architected metric contracts and validation frameworks that solved persistent KPI drift problems, aligning sales and finance leadership around a trusted, certified data foundation.
Araya Rose Company
Principal Solutions Architect - Business Intel
07.2016 - 11.2019
Job overview
- Operated as an independent solutions architect, diagnosing data and analytics problems for client organizations and designing end-to-end intelligence systems that transformed how they understood and ran their businesses.
- Designed and built centralized Power BI analytics platforms with SQL-based semantic models and REST-API integrations across 12+ client engagements, cutting average reporting cycle time by 40% and eliminating manual data dependency.
- Architected unified revenue operating systems using Azure Data Factory, designing integrations across CRM, marketing automation, and delivery platforms that eliminated manual data movement and reduced operational cycle time by 2–3 weeks per client.
- Designed governance frameworks, data dictionary standards, and SOPs that gave each client a repeatable, reliable analytics infrastructure they could govern independently after engagement close.
Columbia College Hollywood
Assistant Director, Financial Aid Systems
09.2013 - 09.2016
Job overview
- Served as the institution's systems architect and solutions lead - diagnosing compliance and operational gaps in financial aid workflows and designing the systems, logic, and reporting infrastructure to solve them for a Title IV-regulated institution.
- Diagnosed and redesigned Title IV financial aid operating systems through workflow restructuring and audit validation logic - solving compliance reliability gaps and reducing processing exceptions by an estimated 30%.
- Designed and built Power BI executive reporting covering student outcomes, financial aid performance, and enrollment risk - giving leadership their first real-time visibility into aid distribution for approximately 400 student accounts.
Loyola Marymount University
Financial Aid Counselor - Systems Analyst
09.2008 - 09.2013
Job overview
- Began career as a solutions practitioner - diagnosing complex financial aid funding challenges for students and families, designing multi-source funding strategies, and building the compliance reporting systems that kept a major university's financial aid operation audit-ready.
- Designed individualized funding solutions for students and families navigating Title IV aid, private scholarships, and institutional grants, which helped students secure appropriate aid and reduced eligibility-review time.
- Built multi-tiered Power BI reporting systems enabling auditors to verify data integrity across annual federal compliance reviews - reducing audit preparation time by an estimated 50% and contributing to zero material findings during tenure.
- Redesigned financial aid policy into automated validation logic within compliance systems - solving recurring error patterns and streamlining approval workflows for approximately 9,000 students and over $100M in annual aid disbursements.
Education
Eastern UniversitySt. Davis, PA
Master of Science from Organizational Management
01-2024
Eastern UniversitySt. Davis, PA
MBA from Data Science
01-2022
Loyola Marymount UniversityLos Angeles
Master of Arts from Education
01-2013
Loyola Marymount UniversityLos Angeles
Bachelor of Arts from Sociology
01-2006
Skills
- Solution design and systems architecture
- Technical leadership
- Cybersecurity best practices
- Database design
- Continuous deployment
- Performance tuning
- Enterprise architecture
- Capacity planning
- Problem management
- Data modeling
- Business analysis
- Machine learning
- Stakeholder management
Certification
- Microsoft Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect: 2026
- Microsoft Fabric Data Engineer Associate: 2025
- Databricks Data Engineer Associate: 2025
- Google Business Intelligence: 2023
- Google Project Management: 2023
Timeline
Principal Solutions Architect - Data Science & AI
Higher Education Assistance Group (HEAG)
11.2024 - Current
Senior Data Scientist - Creative Operations
Walmart Creative
11.2023 - 10.2024
Senior Analyst - Marketing Operations
Adobe
10.2022 - 10.2023
Solution Architect - Revenue & Analytics
P3 Cost Analysts
11.2019 - 10.2022
Principal Solutions Architect - Business Intel
Araya Rose Company
07.2016 - 11.2019
Assistant Director, Financial Aid Systems
Columbia College Hollywood
09.2013 - 09.2016
Financial Aid Counselor - Systems Analyst
Loyola Marymount University
09.2008 - 09.2013
Eastern University
Master of Science from Organizational Management
Eastern University
MBA from Data Science
Loyola Marymount University
Master of Arts from Education
Loyola Marymount University
Bachelor of Arts from Sociology
Availability
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