Data Governance Lead

dv01; United States; On-site; USD 190,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work environment

Learning & mobility

Retirement planning

Healthcare offerings

Parental leave plan

Inclusive workplace

Volunteer days

Job summary

dv01 is building a comprehensive data governance function to ensure AI and analytics operate on trustworthy data. The role leads ownership, stewardship, quality metrics, and metadata controls across loan and deal data.

You will define policies, collaborate with Data Product Manager, Engineering, and Compliance to instrument data quality and catalog definitions, driving reliable governance for a high-growth financial data platform.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in data governance, data quality, or data management.
• Proven track record building programs from the ground up.
• Meticulous and highly organized with strong ownership.
• Fluent in technical conversations; able to review SQL and data models.
• Experience with governance tooling beyond spreadsheets (e.g., BigQuery, dbt, Unity Catalog).
• Knowledgeable about GDPR, CCPA, EU AI Act / ISO 42001.

Responsibilities

• Scale what we have built for AI: ensure data is owned, classified, measured, and trusted at scale.
• Own the Data Quality Framework and its metrics and drive a sustained drop in failures.
• Establish ownership and stewardship on every data domain with documented decisions.
• Own the Data Dictionary and business definitions across warehouse, product, and client views.
• Own data rights in practice and enforce terms in the platform, not contracts.
• Run it like a program: track commitments and maintain clear direction without an initial team.

Skills

Data governance

Data quality

Data management

SQL familiarity

Engineering liaison

Strategy development

Regulatory knowledge

Tools

BigQuery

dbt

Unity Catalog

Collibra

Alation

Job description

dv01 is lifting the curtain on the largest financial market in the world: structured finance. The $16+ trillion market is the backbone of everyday activities that empower financial freedom, from consolidating credit card debt and refinancing student loans, to buying a home and starting a small business.

dv01’s data analytics platform brings unparalleled transparency into investment performance and risk for lenders and Wall Street investors in structured products. As a data-first company, we wrangle critical loan data and build modern analytical tools that enable strategic decision-making for responsible lending. In a nutshell, we’re helping prevent a repeat of the 2008 global financial crisis by offering the data and tools required to make smarter, data-driven decisions resulting in a safer world for all of us.

More than 400 of the largest financial institutions use dv01 for our coverage of over 75 million loans spanning mortgages, personal loans, auto, buy-now-pay-later programs, small business, and student loans. dv01 continues to expand coverage of new markets, adding loans monthly, and developing new technologies for the structured products universe.

The Problem and Opportunity

Our governance practices exist today, but they grew up alongside the product and are largely home‑grown: definitions live in people's heads, ownership is informal, and data quality gets managed reactively, one escalation at a time. The Data Governance Lead will replace that with something deliberate. The priorities are named ownership and stewardship across our data domains, a correct and maintained data dictionary, a data quality framework with real metrics behind it, and disciplined compliance with the terms under which we receive client and third‑party data. Cataloging, lineage, classification, and access controls follow from there.

We are building AI‑powered products on top of that data, and that is what makes this role urgent. An AI product is only as trustworthy as the definitions, ownership, and quality controls underneath it. A model cannot reason correctly about a field nobody has defined, from a source nobody owns, at a quality level nobody measures. Governance is the constraint on how confidently and how quickly we can scale our AI and data products, and this role exists to remove it.

This is a builder's role and a relentless one. The pipeline build sits with Data Engineering and dataset definition with our Data Product Manager; you will work with them, with our teams of Data Analysts, and with Data Operations, Product, Commercial, and Legal to define what good looks like, get it instrumented, and hold the organization to it. It starts as an individual contributor role, with a team to be built as the function earns it.

You will:

• Scale What We Have Already Built for AI: Our data already powers AI products in production. The hard problem is doing that across every dataset, every client, and every new product without ever having to guess whether an answer is right. Our Data Product Manager defines what the data is; you make sure it is owned, classified, measured, and trusted at the scale AI demands. Nobody in this market has solved this yet, and we intend to be the ones who do.
• Own the Data Quality Framework and Its Metrics: Define what quality means across our loan‑level and deal‑level data, set the thresholds, and partner with our Data Product Manager, Data Engineering, and Data Analysts to get monitoring instrumented. Then report on it relentlessly and drive a sustained, measurable drop in failures.
• Establish Ownership and Stewardship: Put named owners and stewards on every data domain, document their decisions, and make sure those decisions stay current instead of going stale the week after they are made.
• Own the Data Dictionary and Business Definitions: Make our definitions correct, complete, and consistent everywhere they appear, from the warehouse to the product to what clients see. Chase down the ambiguities nobody else has time to chase.
• Own Data Rights in Practice: Know exactly what we are permitted to do with every dataset we receive from clients and third parties, and make those terms enforceable in the platform rather than buried in a contract nobody reads.
• Run It Like a Program: Track commitments, elevate what is stuck, and close things out. You will not have a team at the start, so persistence, credibility, and clear direction do the work.

You are:

• Accomplished as a data governance professional, bringing 7+ years of expertise in data governance, data quality, or data management.
• Proven at building programs from the ground up. What exists here today is home‑grown at best, so we need someone who has stood a program up from nothing, not someone who has only administered one that was already running.
• Meticulous and exceptionally organized. You are the person who notices a definition is wrong, tracks down who owns it, and does not let it go until it is fixed.
• Fluent in technical conversations without needing to be an engineer. Able to review SQL, interpret data models, and partner effectively with engineering teams to guide the right technical architecture.
• Experienced in hands‑on governance and data quality using purpose‑built tooling rather than spreadsheets and home‑grown trackers. We use BigQuery, dbt, and Unity Catalog today; experience with platforms like Collibra or Alation counts equally. What matters is that you have operated a real stack.
• Strategic about the intersection of AI and data governance. You have a proven track record of designing governance frameworks (covering quality, lineage, metadata, and compliance) that ensure AI models scale on trustworthy data.
• Knowledgeable across core governance domains (ownership, stewardship, quality, lineage, metadata, classification, access, master/reference data) and key regulatory frameworks (GDPR, CCPA, EU AI Act / ISO 42001).

Nice to haves:

• Experience managing data intended for external customer consumption
• Experience at a startup or startup‑like environment
• Experience with structured finance and lending data
• Experience building scalable web applications using TypeScript, and deal studio

In good faith, our salary range for this role is $190,000 - $220,000, but are not tied to it. The final offer amount will be at the company’s sole discretion and determined by multiple factors, including years and depth of experience, expertise, and other business considerations. Our community is fueled by diverse people who welcome differing points of view and the opportunity to learn from each other. Our team is passionate about building a product people love and a culture where everyone can innovate and thrive.

BENEFITS & PERKS:

• Hybrid Work Environment: 3 days a week in office required based on your line of business and location
• A Culture of Learning & Mobility: Dedicated trainings, leadership development and mentorship programs designed to ensure that your time at Fitch will be a continuous learning opportunity
• Investing in Your Future: Retirement planning and tuition reimbursement programs that empower you to achieve your short and long‑term goals
• Promoting Health & Wellbeing: Comprehensive healthcare offerings that enable physical, mental, financial, social, and occupational wellbeing
• Supportive Parenting Policies: Family‑friendly policies, including a generous global parental leave plan, designed to help you balance career and family life effectively
• Inclusive Work Environment: A collaborative workplace where all voices are valued, with Employee Resource Groups that unite and empower our colleagues around the globe
• Dedication to Giving Back: Paid volunteer days, matched funding for donations and ample opportunities to volunteer in your community

dv01 is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants and employees will receive consideration for employment opportunities without regard to race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, veteran status, membership in the uniformed services, disability, genetic information or any other basis protected by applicable law.