Director, Data Quality & Observability

Ziff Davis, Inc.; Dallas, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Ookla, an Accenture company, seeks a Director to lead the Data Quality & Observability function. This role designs enterprise standards, builds observability capabilities, and partners with engineering and governance to weave quality into pipelines across analytics, AI/ML, and products.

The leader will drive KPIs, champion data-as-a-product mindset, and oversee the Data Quality Analyst team with a 25% travel expectation in a hybrid environment.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in data quality frameworks, data observability, data monitoring, and data reliability practices.
• Strong understanding of data pipelines, data warehousing, transformation tools, and modern data stack components.
• Experience designing and deploying enterprise data quality programs, including rules engines, profiling, and remediation workflows.
• Familiarity with data observability platforms and data quality tooling such as Monte Carlo, Great Expectations, Soda, or dbt tests.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence without direct authority.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement Ookla’s enterprise data quality framework, including rules, standards, measurement practices, and ownership accountability.
• Build and operate a data observability capability to monitor data health, freshness, volume, schema changes, and pipeline reliability.
• Partner with data engineering, analytics engineering, and governance teams to embed quality checks and SLAs across data pipelines and data products.
• Define and track data quality KPIs and metrics; communicate status, trends, and risk to stakeholders and leadership.
• Lead root cause analysis and remediation for data quality incidents across the data ecosystem.
• Champion a data-as-a-product mindset, ensuring data quality is a shared organizational accountability across business and technology teams.
• Evaluate, implement, and manage data quality and observability tooling in partnership with engineering and architecture.
• Manage and develop the Data Quality Analyst function and support cross-functional data steward networks.

Skills

Data quality frameworks

Data observability

Stakeholder management

Communication

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Management, Analytics, or related field

Advanced degree preferred

Tools

Monte Carlo

Great Expectations

Soda

dbt tests

Job description

Ookla, an Accenture company, seeks a Director to lead the Data Quality & Observability function. This role designs enterprise standards, builds observability capabilities, and partners with engineering and governance to weave quality into pipelines across analytics, AI/ML, and products.

The leader will drive KPIs, champion data-as-a-product mindset, and oversee the Data Quality Analyst team with a 25% travel expectation in a hybrid environment.