Senior Data Engineer - Data Governance

Alter Domus • New York, NY

21h • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Data Engineer with deep expertise in data governance to join our team and play a pivotal role in safeguarding our organization’s data assets while building and maintaining robust data platforms. In this critical position, you will bridge the gap between data engineering, governance, and security, ensuring that our data pipelines and management practices align with privacy, compliance, and operational risk standards. 
You will be responsible for designing and implementing data solutions while establishing and enforcing comprehensive policies and standards for data stewardship, compliance, and security within our data platform. Your primary focus will be on engineering scalable data architectures that protect sensitive information while enabling appropriate access controls and ensuring adherence to relevant regulations.

The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in data governance, risk management, and data security practices, with proven ability to navigate complex regulatory environments and implement effective technical solutions.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science, or related field.
• 5+ years of proven experience in data engineering with strong focus on building scalable data platforms and pipelines.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with Databricks platform, including Unity Catalog implementation and administration for data governance.
• Experience with data management tools and technologies, including data quality and data lineage solutions such as AWS Glue, AWS DataZone, AWS Data Pipeline, and AWS Lake Formation.
• Strong expertise in Unity Catalog features including privilege management, data lineage, catalog management, access control, and audit logging.
• Familiarity with AWS services, including Identity and Access Management (IAM), Amazon Macie, AWS Lake Formation, and AWS Glue for data governance and security.
• Excellent analytical, investigative, and problem-solving skills, with a focus on risk assessment and mitigation.
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written, with the ability to convey complex information to diverse audiences and interface effectively with IT, compliance, and executive teams.
• Ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams and influence stakeholders at all levels.

Nice To Haves

• Relevant certifications (e.g., Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), or similar) are a plus.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain secure and compliant data platforms that ensure data integrity, quality, and governance across the organization.
• Ensure the integrity, quality, and compliance of data across the data engineering team through effective governance practices.
• Establish a culture of data stewardship and accountability among data owners and users through both technical and policy measures.
• Implement robust data protection measures that align with industry regulations and best practices while enabling data accessibility.
• Enhance the organization’s ability to respond to data security incidents and compliance challenges effectively through automated monitoring and controls.
• Create unified views of data assets across multiple platforms, reducing duplication and sprawl while improving discoverability.
• Design, develop, and maintain scalable data pipelines and architectures with embedded governance controls, implementing ETL/ELT processes with data quality checks, lineage tracking, and access controls using Databricks and AWS services.
• Deploy, configure, and administer Unity Catalog in Databricks as the centralized governance solution, managing fine-grained access control from account level down to table rows and columns, and implementing data cataloging, classification, and lineage tracking.
• Develop, implement, and maintain comprehensive data governance policies, standards, and procedures to ensure data integrity, quality, and compliance, including data classification, retention, and stewardship, leveraging Unity Catalog, AWS DataZone, and tools such as Collibra, Alation, and Apache Atlas.
• Establish and manage data stewardship roles and responsibilities, ensuring accountability for data quality and compliance while defining and enforcing data access controls to protect sensitive information and enable appropriate access for authorized users.
• Perform sensitive data discovery and classification to identify and protect critical information assets, implementing Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) frameworks within Unity Catalog and AWS environments.
• Implement data masking, audit logging, tokenization, and key management practices across multi-cloud environments, and design protection measures for both structured and unstructured data, including S3 bucket policies, encryption standards, and Delta Lake security features.
• Deploy data quality monitoring using Unity Catalog's anomaly detection and data profiling capabilities to ensure data accuracy, completeness, and reliability, and develop automated validation processes and quality dashboards.
• Implement comprehensive data lineage tracking using Unity Catalog to track data flows, transformations, and usage patterns, and monitor data access patterns and user behavior, investigating anomalies and recommending mitigations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including data owners, legal, compliance, and IT, to assess data security risks, implement mitigation measures, and ensure adherence to regulatory requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, CSSF, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, SOC 2, and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and CIS Controls.
• Monitor compliance with data governance policies and regulatory requirements through regular audits and assessments using Unity Catalog audit logs and system tables and maintain an up-to-date inventory of sensitive data with proper access controls.
• Implement Delta Sharing capabilities for secure data sharing with external users and organizations and enable cross-workspace and cross-region data collaboration using Unity Catalog.
• Provide training and support to engineers and users on data governance, Unity Catalog, security best practices, and compliance requirements, while educating business units on secure data handling, labeling, and sharing practices.
• Serve as a point of contact for data-related inquiries, providing guidance on data usage, access, and compliance issues, and prepare actionable reports and dashboards for stakeholders on data governance metrics and initiatives.
• Work closely with IT and security teams to design and implement protection measures for structured and unstructured data, and support incident response related to data access, loss, or policy violations.
• Stay informed about industry trends, regulations, and best practices related to data engineering, governance, and security, recommending improvements to existing policies and practices, and presenting reports on initiatives to senior management and stakeholders.
• Conduct periodic audits of data permissions and user roles and regular penetration testing to ensure ongoing compliance and security.

Benefits

• Support for professional accreditations
• Flexible arrangements, generous holidays, plus an additional day off for your birthday!
• Continuous mentoring along your career progression
• Active sports, events and social committees across our offices
• 24/7 support available from our Employee Assistance Program
• The opportunity to invest in our growth and success through our Employee Share Plan
• Plus additional local benefits depending on your location

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level