Remote Data Catalog & Metadata Specialist (NCAPS)

COLSA Corporation; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

COLSA Corporation seeks a Senior Data Catalog & Metadata Specialist to support NASA's NCAPS contract, aiding ACPO and the DIISC team. This fully remote role is open to candidates in the United States, with state restrictions noted.

The ideal candidate will map data lineage, establish a shared catalog and metadata standards, and drive adoption across the portfolio while embedding with the data team to capture provenance and trust in data.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or higher in computer science, data science, engineering, math, statistics, operations research, or a related field.
• 2–5 years of experience in a data librarian, research data services, data curation, metadata, or data catalog role.
• U.S. Citizenship required; must be able to undergo a background investigation for a NASA Public Trust.
• Hands-on experience running a data catalog or metadata management platform (e.g., DataHub, Atlan, Collibra, Alation, Informatica, Microsoft Purview, or Amundsen), or equivalent experience managing a metadata repository or catalog.
• Ability to embed with the data team and understand pipelines, data flows, and how data is produced and used to capture lineage and metadata accurately.
• Strong command of metadata standards, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and data dictionaries.
• Demonstrated ability to drive adoption of a catalog, standard, or shared data practice across multiple teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to translate between technical and program audiences.

Responsibilities

• Catalog and describe datasets with clear, consistent records so users can find and understand them.
• Build and maintain taxonomies, a shared business glossary, and metadata documentation standards.
• Set cataloging and metadata standards and drive their adoption across the team.
• Help analysts and engineers find data, interpret provenance, and understand limitations.
• Onboard new datasets and retire stale ones with provenance, ownership, and data-quality notes.
• Map end-to-end data lineage across sources, systems, owners, and transformations.
• Evaluate and onboard an enterprise data catalog tool (DataHub, Atlan, Collibra, Alation, Purview) and integrate with sources.
• Ensure catalog integrates with Dagster and track metadata completeness and freshness metrics.
• Drive catalog adoption and be the point of contact for data existence and usage guidance.

Skills

Data cataloging

Metadata management

Data lineage

Excellent communication

Cross-team collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree or higher in CS/DS/Engineering/Math/Stats or related field

Tools

DataHub

Atlan

Collibra

Alation

Microsoft Purview

Informatica

Amundsen

Dagster

Job description

COLSA Corporation seeks a Senior Data Catalog & Metadata Specialist to support NASA's NCAPS contract, aiding ACPO and the DIISC team. This fully remote role is open to candidates in the United States, with state restrictions noted.

The ideal candidate will map data lineage, establish a shared catalog and metadata standards, and drive adoption across the portfolio while embedding with the data team to capture provenance and trust in data.