Senior Analytics Operations Specialist

Western Governors University•Salt Lake City, UT

1d•$100,000 - $150,000•Onsite

About The Position

Institutional Analytics and Research (IAR) is looking for a strategic, systems-minded analytics professional to help elevate how analytics work gets done across the organization. This is not a traditional data analyst role focused on building reports and dashboards. Instead, you will serve as a force multiplier for a department of approximately 90 analytics professionals, helping establish standards, improve processes, increase transparency, and enable more effective collaboration across analytics, data engineering, enterprise technology, and business stakeholders. In this role, you will drive the operational excellence behind analytics and research initiatives by developing scalable processes, advancing data governance practices, improving knowledge management, measuring business impact, and ensuring teams have the tools and frameworks needed to deliver extraordinary outcomes. You will act as a connector between technical and non-technical teams, helping transform complex work into clear priorities, actionable insights, and measurable value.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a related field.
5 or more years of experience in Analytics with demonstrated experience in SDLC and Agile/Scrum.
3 or more years of experience in the definition and execution of workflows in several of the following areas: CI/CD, MLOps, Data Management, Data Governance, Data Engineering, Analytics Processes and Infrastructure, Data Quality, and Data Science.
Demonstrated understanding of data governance concepts, including data lineage, data cataloging, metadata management, data classification, and data quality practices.
Experience improving data discoverability, governance, and cataloging practices that help organizations identify, understand, and confidently use the right data assets.
Experience partnering closely with Data Engineering teams to define processes, standards, governance frameworks, and operational improvements without serving as a hands-on data engineer.
Strong ability to bridge technical and business stakeholders, translating complex data concepts into actionable recommendations, priorities, and outcomes.

Nice To Haves

Experience working within Databricks environments, including Databricks Unity Catalog and modern data governance practices.
Experience with enterprise data governance and catalog solutions such as Collibra, Ataccama, or similar platforms.
Experience as a leader, project manager, product owner, or senior individual contributor within analytics, data, business intelligence, or data governance organizations.
An equivalent combination of training, experience, credentials, or accomplishments demonstrating the ability to perform the essential functions of this job may substitute for education degree requirements.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and continuously improve the operating processes that govern analytics work across IAR, including demand intake, prioritization, stakeholder engagement, resource planning, delivery tracking, and portfolio management.
Create visibility into departmental work by developing frameworks that help leaders understand pipelines, priorities, capacity, expected business value, and delivery status.
Define and enforce standard operating procedures, service level agreements, templates, governance practices, and analytics standards that drive consistency across teams.
Advance data governance capabilities across IAR, including data cataloging, data lineage, data quality, metadata management, discoverability, and asset ownership.
Partner closely with Data Engineering, Enterprise Technology, MLOps, and Product teams to improve data operations, issue management, observability, and cross-functional collaboration.
Develop measurement frameworks that help quantify the impact of analytics initiatives, support prioritization decisions, and demonstrate the value created by IAR across WGU.
Drive department-wide capability building through onboarding improvements, knowledge sharing, communities of practice, stakeholder education, learning resources, and process enablement initiatives.