Lead the design and implementation of data governance frameworks in a code-driven environment, ensuring data is managed securely, transparently, and in alignment with regulatory standards. This role sits within the Product organization and requires deep technical expertise to operationalize governance across data platforms and development workflows.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop, deploy, and manage data governance policies as code using Open Policy Agent (OPA), integrated directly into CI/CD pipelines to enforce access, classification, retention, and exception handling at scale.
- Implement and audit role-based and attribute-based access controls (RBAC/ABAC), manage access review cycles, and uphold segregation-of-duties and privileged access policies in coordination with security teams.
- Create and maintain data contracts in YAML or dbt to standardize schema definitions, assign data ownership, and define service-level expectations across pipelines.
- Document and manage a centralized policy register with clear procedures for enforcement, exception tracking, approvals, and escalation paths; lead training and adoption efforts across teams.
- Collaborate with metadata teams to establish standards for data glossaries, ownership models, and stewardship practices, ensuring governance policies integrate with cataloging workflows.
- Define requirements for end-to-end data lineage, working closely with engineering and metadata specialists to enable audit readiness, impact analysis, and change validation.
- Design and publish governance KPIs—such as policy compliance rates, access review completion, and exception resolution time—through dashboards for leadership visibility.
- Evaluate and integrate governance tooling within modern data stacks including Snowflake, BigQuery, and dbt, leveraging automation and generative AI to streamline documentation and exception resolution.
- Ensure governance practices meet internal standards, privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PII), and audit requirements, providing recommendations for continuous improvement.
- Offer technical mentorship and guidance to peers, fostering a culture of accountability and proactive data stewardship.
Required Expertise
- Proven experience in data governance with a strong technical foundation and attention to detail.
- Hands-on implementation of policy-as-code using OPA within CI/CD environments.
- Direct experience with access control frameworks, access reviews, and privileged access management.
- Proficiency in defining and maintaining data contracts, schema standards, and SLAs using YAML or dbt.
- Familiarity with metadata management, data lineage, and governance KPIs.
- Experience integrating governance solutions into cloud data platforms such as Snowflake and BigQuery.
- Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives and provide technical leadership within engineering teams.
