Roles in a CDF implementation - Cognite Docs

CDF project teams are cross-functional. Data is often distributed across organizations, and one of the main goals is to share data between teams — each team owns its data and provides access to others as necessary. Individuals can hold multiple roles.

Roles and responsibilities

The Category column groups roles into three bands: the project team leads day-to-day delivery, supporting roles champion and connect the program, and the extended implementation team brings in specialists from IT, security, and source systems.

Role	Category	Responsibility
Business owner	Project team	Has intimate knowledge of the business problems to solve and the data required to solve them. Helps define and design data-driven solutions.
CDF system administrator	Project team	Sets up and manages CDF and data pipelines. Responsible for access and data management.
Solution builder	Project team	Builds data-driven solutions — typically data scientists, data analysts, data engineers, or subject matter experts.
Executive sponsor	Supporting	Champions the project and sets the business vision. Articulates value, communicates strategy, and encourages adoption.
System integrator	Supporting	Sets up live connections between CDF and source systems. Works closely with infrastructure engineers and source system administrators.
Solution architect	Extended implementation team	Uses technical expertise to integrate and optimize CDF use across the organization, tailoring solutions to developer and business needs.
Infrastructure engineer	Extended implementation team	Implements, manages, and monitors cloud and on-premises environments. Provides on-prem infrastructure access and connectivity where needed.
Security engineer	Extended implementation team	Secures systems and protects data — designs and implements digital security controls, manages access, and protects data across cloud and hybrid environments.
Source system administrator	Extended implementation team	Grants access to source systems and helps the team understand their data models and how to connect and extract data.
Subject matter expert (SME)	Extended implementation team	Functional expert who supports the implementation team.
Data scientist	Extended implementation team	Analyzes large amounts of data to help drive decision-making.
Information modeler	Extended implementation team	Ensures the organization’s data is organized correctly and optimized to achieve critical objectives.

Provide CDF training

Before implementation starts, make sure the system administrator, solution builders, and extended implementation team members have training in CDF. Cognite Academy and Cognite Docs provide courses and technical product information to build the concepts and practical skills the team needs.

Last modified on August 26, 2026

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