Senior Data Governance Analyst

SSA Marine • Seattle, WA

1d • $110,000 - $125,000

About The Position

The Senior Data Governance Analyst is an individual contributor who leads governance activities across assigned enterprise data domains and helps operationalize a maturing data governance program. Working with data owners, data stewards, business teams, and Information Technology & Services (IT&S), the role applies governance principles in complex business and technical environments to establish definitions, standards, business rules, data-quality requirements, metadata, lineage, and controls.

Combining hands-on data analysis with governance leadership, the analyst owns complex data-quality and control issues, leads root-cause analysis, translates business requirements into actionable governance and system requirements, and validates implemented solutions. The position is a senior resource for complex cross-functional data issues and partners with the Manager, Data Governance, to strengthen and operationalize governance practices across the organization.

The role leads governance across assigned domains; defines standards and data-quality rules; governs master and reference data; maintains metadata, lineage, controls, and audit evidence; and leads cross-functional governance work. Required duties are normally performed in a climate-controlled office environment, with exposure to computer screens and usually moderate noise.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, Data Management, Computer Science, or a related discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant professional experience.
• At least 5 years of progressive data governance, data management, data quality, or closely related experience, with demonstrated success independently leading complex, cross-functional governance initiatives.
• Depth across core data governance disciplines, including data quality, master and reference data, critical data elements, business rules, ownership, stewardship, and controls.
• Hands-on proficiency in data profiling and analysis, including investigating data-quality issues and conducting root-cause analysis.
• Background with data governance, catalog, metadata, data-quality, or Master Data Management platforms, such as Informatica, Microsoft Purview, Collibra, Alation, or comparable technologies.
• Ability to translate business requirements into actionable standards, governance requirements, controls, validation rules, and acceptance criteria.
• Strong understanding of enterprise systems and data flows, including how business processes, system configuration, integrations, and controls affect data quality and lineage.
• Strong facilitation and stakeholder-management skills, including the ability to challenge assumptions, resolve ambiguity, and drive decisions across business and technical teams without direct authority.
• Ability to independently lead complex governance work across multiple priorities, stakeholders, systems, and data domains.
• Ability to complete company-sponsored ITIL Foundation certification within 90 days of hire.

Nice To Haves

• Background supporting Master Data Management implementations or enterprise data transformation initiatives.
• Working knowledge of SQL for data profiling, validation, troubleshooting, or data-quality analysis.
• Familiarity with Power BI or comparable reporting and visualization tools.
• Professional certification in data management or governance, such as DAMA Certified Data Management Professional (CDMP), EDM Council DCAM, or comparable credentials.

Responsibilities

• Lead governance activities for assigned enterprise data domains in partnership with data owners, stewards, subject-matter experts, and IT&S teams.
• Establish and maintain business definitions, data standards, critical data elements, business rules, ownership, stewardship expectations, and decision rights within established governance frameworks.
• Develop understanding of the business processes, systems, workflows, and integrations that create, maintain, and consume governed data.
• Translate business-approved requirements into data standards, controls, system requirements, and governance processes.
• Lead governance working sessions; document decisions and exceptions; resolve conflicting or incomplete requirements; and escalate issues requiring business or governance decisions.
• Apply established privacy, security, retention, access, and regulatory requirements to governed data, escalating interpretation or exception decisions to appropriate control owners.
• Define domain-level data-quality rules, thresholds, metrics, and validation criteria consistent with enterprise standards.
• Perform data profiling and analysis to identify anomalies, inconsistencies, data-quality issues, and control gaps.
• Lead root-cause analysis across business processes, system configuration, workflows, integrations, and data.
• Drive data-quality issue management and remediation with data owners, stewards, application teams, and technology partners.
• Monitor data-quality measures and exceptions, identify recurring issues, and recommend preventative process, system, or data controls.
• Govern master and reference data across enterprise systems and business processes within assigned domains.
• Define and document master-data definitions, hierarchies, ownership, lifecycle rules, standards, and data-quality requirements.
• Translate approved business requirements into MDM requirements, including validation rules, governance workflows, approval processes, and acceptance criteria.
• Serve as the Data Governance subject-matter expert on MDM initiatives, partnering with business and technical teams through design and implementation.
• Perform testing and validation to confirm implemented MDM capabilities meet approved governance requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Maintain business and technical metadata, including definitions, ownership, relationships, classifications, rules, and standards, within enterprise governance and cataloging tools.
• Document and analyze data lineage across source systems, integrations, transformations, and consuming applications to identify dependencies, control gaps, and data-quality risks.
• Identify discrepancies between approved business definitions or rules and actual data, process, or system behavior.
• Define governance requirements for controls and validation rules and validate that implemented controls meet approved requirements.
• Maintain governance documentation and evidence needed for traceability, accountability, and auditability.
• Independently lead complex governance work involving multiple business functions, systems, or data domains.
• Challenge ambiguous, incomplete, or conflicting requirements and drive stakeholders toward clear definitions, decisions, and ownership.
• Serve as a senior governance resource to Data Governance Analysts and project teams on complex data-quality, metadata, lineage, master-data, and governance issues.
• Communicate data-quality findings, governance risks, decisions, and recommendations to business and technical audiences.
• Partner with Legal, Privacy, Cybersecurity, Architecture, Analytics, and other control or technology functions as appropriate.
• Support governed data foundations for analytics, automation, AI, enterprise system implementations, and other data-dependent initiatives.
• Complete company-sponsored ITIL Foundation certification within 90 days of hire.

What This Job Offers

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