Data Products Program Lead (Contract to Hire)

CooperCompanies•Victor, NY

5d•$121,223 - $161,630•Onsite

About The Position

The Data Products Program Lead leads delivery of the EDU program’s data products from definition through release and consumer adoption. This is a majority-technical role with program-management responsibilities: the role requires the ability to review and challenge data models, semantic definitions, and pipeline designs, while also managing an integrated plan, risk register, and steering-group reporting to Global PMO standards. The role translates quarterly milestones into executable releases, convenes domain and system subject-matter experts, and ensures each product is released with a named owner, named consumers, and defined DATSIS. It also builds evidence on ways of working, intake, standards, council decisions, and adoption metrics to inform an operating-model decision before month 18. The position requires full-time onsite work five days per week in Victor, New York, and is not eligible for relocation assistance. Travel is less than 20%, with occasional domain workshops, steering-group sessions, and offsite meetings, including in the UK and Victor, NY. The role is not eligible for employer-sponsored work authorization now or in the future; applicants must have permanent and ongoing U.S. work authorization without future sponsorship.

Requirements

At least 8 years of program or technical program management experience, including at least 3 years leading enterprise data, MDM, or data-platform programs.
Has established a data product or data governance program from the start at least once, defining products, ownership, intake, and release processes and delivering them.
Demonstrated delivery of large cross-functional initiatives with hard dependencies on other programs and IT platform work.
Experience transitioning or consolidating master and transactional data between systems, such as CRM or ERP migrations, MDM implementations, or registry builds.
Experience working directly with data and system architects on logical and semantic design, and with data science teams consuming the output.
Experience driving organizational adoption of new data products or operating models, including readiness and communication planning.
Track record of setting, measuring, and reporting program KPIs under a corporate PMO framework.
Working knowledge of the enterprise data lifecycle, including transaction layers, master data and identity registries, integration and pipelines, physical, logical and semantic layers, and data catalogues.
Able to read, build on, and challenge data models, semantic definitions, and datasets; comfortable using SQL against a cloud data platform.
Understands governed and certified data products, including named ownership, defined consumers, DATSIS, lineage, quality thresholds, and release versioning.
Program-management discipline covering integrated planning, dependency management, risk and issue management, KPI definition and reporting, and recovery planning.
Strong facilitation and workshop leadership across business domains and IT, including the ability to drive decisions among senior stakeholders with competing priorities.
Stakeholder-management and influencing skills across a complex multinational matrix without positional authority.
Strategic thinking that connects releases to layered architecture and enterprise outcomes.
Business and execution mindset; anticipates obstacles, proposes solutions, and adapts as priorities change.
Clear, concise written and verbal communication for executive and technical audiences.
Independent self-starter able to manage multiple priorities with minimal supervision.
Team-oriented and able to work in accordance with company values and policies.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, Business, or a related discipline.
Must be permanently and continuously authorized to work in the United States without present or future employer sponsorship.
Able to work full-time onsite five days per week in Victor, NY.

Nice To Haves

Experience in medical devices, life sciences, or a regulated industry.
Exposure to product data and customer data domains.
Graduate degree in a quantitative or data discipline.
PMP, PgMP, Agile, or Scrum certification.
Hands-on familiarity with Snowflake, Informatica or CDM, and Collibra.
Less than 20% travel is expected; occasional attendance at workshops, steering-group sessions, and offsite meetings is part of the role.

Responsibilities

Translate the EDU roadmap and quarterly milestones into releases with defined scope, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and KPIs.
Build and maintain the integrated program plan and schedule, including dependencies on other programs.
Report plans, resources, risks, dependencies, and KPIs to Global PMO oversight in the standard format and cadence, without parallel tracking.
Prepare steering-group and Program Director packs, and track decisions, actions, and commitments through closure.
Identify schedule slippage, propose recovery plans, and escalate as needed to program drivers or the steering group.
Manage the program budget line, including program-management contract, travel and expense, validation, and assessment spending, with the cost-center owner.
Own each data product’s delivery lifecycle, including definition, attribute scope, source mapping, semantic rules, build acceptance, release, and versioning.
Ensure each product has a named owner, registered consumers, and defined DATSIS before release; publish release notes and catalogue entries.
Work with the Data Products Delivery Lead and system architects on registry-first MDM and the semantic layer exposed by the products.
Keep data science AI use cases on the product release path, ensuring each use case is built on a released product rather than a side extract.
Protect the layered architecture by ensuring products are built at or above the compute boundary and exposed through APIs and agent protocols, rather than inside transactional systems.
Coordinate across the four transactional-layer domains and the IT delivery team.
Convene domain BPA/SMEs and IT-system BSA/SMEs as the Core Team for each project.
Surface cross-domain semantic conflicts, route them to the semantic council, and implement council decisions in product definitions.
Manage interdependencies with Program Nexus, Courtyard, and other consumer programs, keeping plans aligned.
Run intake for registered consumers, capturing required attributes, agreeing acceptance criteria, and sequencing MVP scope and v1 releases for registered consumers.
Develop and run readiness, communication, and adoption plans for consuming teams, including regional data and BI leads.
Track product adoption and usage and feed consumption evidence into prioritization.
Support transition of released products to business-as-usual ownership and stewardship.
Codify program ways of working, including intake, standards, stewardship, council decision rights, and the release process.
Capture lessons learned and operating-model findings at each quarterly milestone and compile the evidence pack for the operating-model decision.
Contribute to north-star validation and the facilitated distance-to-north-star assessment as the program representative.