Data Governance Functional Expert

Overview

We are seeking an experienced data governance functional expert to close the gap between governance policy and engineering execution within a data governance dashboard program. This role is responsible for translating policies, retention rules, compliance requirements, and data contracts into clearly defined, measurable KPI specifications, then partnering with the engineering team to identify the data needed to calculate them. This is a functional, subject-matter role focused on governance domain expertise, not a hands-on engineering position, though close, daily collaboration with the engineering and reporting teams is core to how the role operates.

Experience: 8+ years in data governance, regulatory compliance, or risk and policy reporting, with hands-on experience defining and operationalizing governance KPIs.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

• KPI Definition and Policy Translation – Partner directly with governance stakeholders to translate policies, retention rules, compliance requirements, and data contracts into clearly defined, measurable KPI specifications, including the business definition, pass/fail logic, applicable scope, and compliance thresholds for each metric.
• Source and Gap Assessment – Work with the data engineering team to determine whether a defined KPI can be measured from existing source data; where a required field or signal does not yet exist, document and escalate the gap as an explicit business-side dependency rather than allowing pipeline development to stall on undefined logic.
• KPI Specification and Stewardship – Maintain a versioned KPI and metric definition register, extending the Glossary and Stewardship dashboard, recording the business definition, calculation logic, data owner, and review status for each governance metric.
• Engineering Handoff – Translate finalized KPI specifications into clear, implementation-ready guidance for the data engineering team, including candidate source tables and fields across the Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers and Purview-classified assets.
• Policy and Retention Domain Guidance – Apply hands-on experience in policy enforcement, data retention and lifecycle management, and data contract compliance measurement to recommend realistic, measurable KPI scope when ideal policy language does not map cleanly to available data.
• Stakeholder Facilitation – Lead structured KPI definition workshops with the governance committee, data domain owners, and data stewards, securing sign-off on metric definitions prior to engineering build.
• Validation Support – Partner with the BA/QA function during user acceptance testing to confirm delivered dashboards accurately reflect the agreed-upon KPI logic and thresholds.
• Documentation and Knowledge Transfer – Produce clear, business-readable documentation of each governance KPI’s definition, calculation logic, and data lineage to support long-term ownership by the business after handoff.

 

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Data Management, Business Analytics, Risk and Compliance, or a related field
• 8+ years of experience in data governance, regulatory compliance, or risk reporting roles, with direct, hands-on experience defining or operationalizing governance KPIs, such as policy enforcement, data quality, or retention compliance metrics
• Demonstrated ability to translate ambiguous policy or compliance language into specific, measurable, data-backed metrics, including the judgment to recognize when policy intent cannot be cleanly measured and to recommend a realistic, scoped alternative
• Working knowledge of data governance frameworks, such as DAMA-DMBOK or equivalent
• Experience partnering with data engineering and business intelligence teams to translate business requirements into technical specifications
• Strong stakeholder facilitation, written documentation, and communication skills, with comfort leading definition workshops with senior business and technical stakeholders
• Familiarity with metadata, lineage, and data cataloging concepts, such as Microsoft Purview, Unity Catalog, or equivalent

 

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on familiarity with Azure Databricks and/or Microsoft Purview
• Experience in governance-heavy or regulated industries, such as hospitality, financial services, or healthcare
• Certification in data governance or compliance, such as CDMP, DGSP, or equivalent
• Experience building or maintaining a business glossary, metric catalog, or KPI definition register
• Exposure to Power BI or other BI tooling as a consumer of governance metrics

Skills & Requirements

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