Water Data Steward & Standards Lead

HDR; Columbus (OH); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee‑owned culture

Job summary

HDR is seeking an experienced Data Steward for the Water Business Group to define data standards, glossary, and governance. You will coordinate a network of SMEs, align data practices with enterprise expectations, and promote responsible data use across projects.

The role emphasizes leadership, change management, and collaboration with data stewards, enterprise data science teams, and operations staff to enable reliable data definitions and AI-enabled use cases.

Qualifications

• Ten years of strategic leadership experience focused on growing, developing and leading teams in change management and working with data.
• Fifteen years of overall experience providing diverse data‑centric solutions and services to an organization and the industry.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent related experience in a technical or data-focused field.

Responsibilities

• Establish and coordinate a network of SME expertise across the Water Business Group to define technical standards, while ensuring alignment to Water data practices and enterprise expectations.
• Develop and maintain business-aligned data definitions for key engineering and technical terms that support structured data models, reporting, automation, and AI use cases.
• Use your technical network to build alignment and consensus around data processes, priority, and expected use.
• Promote consistent, responsible use of technical data, including access, data quality, best practice for format, and reuse.
• Support governance of externally sourced datasets (access, approvals, inventory awareness, storage, and lifecycle considerations).
• Promote data fluency across the Water Business Group.
• Coordinate with the Technology Director to align data workflows and initiatives to Water BG Strategy.
• Lead change management efforts to drive adoption of data standards, practices, and tools across the Water BG.
• Regularly communicate and collaborate with other Data Stewards, Enterprise Data Science Teams, and Enterprise Data Operations staff.
• Ensure new tools identified for implementation within the Water BG are aligned to data strategy.

Skills

Data governance

Leadership

Change management

Data fluency

Cross‑functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree in architecture, engineering, data science, business, computer science, or related discipline

Job description

HDR is seeking an experienced Data Steward for the Water Business Group to define data standards, glossary, and governance. You will coordinate a network of SMEs, align data practices with enterprise expectations, and promote responsible data use across projects.

The role emphasizes leadership, change management, and collaboration with data stewards, enterprise data science teams, and operations staff to enable reliable data definitions and AI-enabled use cases.