Senior Data Governance Architect

Steampunk; McLean (VA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Steampunk is seeking a Data Governance SME to design, implement, and operationalize data governance practices for a large federal client. You will drive metadata management, data cataloging, and stewardship workflows to ensure data assets are discoverable, trustworthy, and well-governed.

The role includes assessing data quality, governance maturity, and AI-related data risk, with collaboration across technical and business stakeholders and ongoing monthly reporting.

Qualifications

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Data Management, Data Science, Business Analytics, Computer Science, or related field with 10+ years of total experience.
• 6+ years of data governance, data management, or data science experience.
• Experience assessing data quality and building data governance frameworks including stewardship operating models.
• Understanding of metadata types (business, technical, operational), data lineage, and schema management concepts.
• Familiarity with data privacy, security, and access control concepts including experience supporting data access-request workflows.
• Proficiency with data analysis and query tools (e.g., SQL, Excel).
• Experience with AI training data concepts to assess data quality, origin, and bias considerations.
• Strong written and verbal communication and facilitation skills.

Responsibilities

• Assess current-state data assets, governance practices, and interoperability constraints.
• Deliver a Data Management Framework.
• Implement and maintain data catalogs, metadata repositories, and business glossaries.
• Support data stewardship and ownership models, including workflows.
• Conduct exploratory data analysis to identify data quality issues and remediation priorities.
• Operate a data-quality remediation tracking process with monthly reporting.
• Align technical teams and business stakeholders on data definitions and usage standards.
• Support data access-request workflows and access controls per classification principles.
• Collaborate with the Data Architect to ensure supporting metadata capture and lineage tracking.
• Deliver quarterly data maturity assessments with improvement recommendations.
• Communicate data quality and governance findings clearly to technical and executive audiences.
• Contribute to AI Compliance and Risk Management Plan data origin and quality sections.
• Maintain audit-ready documentation of data assessments, findings, and remediation activity.

Skills

Data governance

Metadata management

Data quality

Data lineage

Stakeholder engagement

SQL

Excel

Cloud data platforms

Communication

Security clearance

Education

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

Tools

Collibra

Alation

Atlan

Informatica

Cloud-native catalog tools

Job description

Steampunk is seeking a Data Governance SME to design, implement, and operationalize data governance practices for a large federal client. You will drive metadata management, data cataloging, and stewardship workflows to ensure data assets are discoverable, trustworthy, and well-governed.

The role includes assessing data quality, governance maturity, and AI-related data risk, with collaboration across technical and business stakeholders and ongoing monthly reporting.