Manager, Data Governance

Description:
On-site in Irvine, CA
Our client seeks a deeply technical Manager, Data Governance to design, build, and operationalize an enterprise data governance program across engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain data domains. The leader will implement governance tooling, instrument data pipelines, and enforce standards at the platform level. The role partners with Security on AI governance and architects controls for unified data governance. This is a hands-on execution role focused on SQL, Azure, Databricks, and Python.
This is a contract to hire opportunity. Applicants must be willing and able to work on a w2 basis and convert to FTE following contract duration. For our w2 consultants, we offer a great benefits package that includes Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits, 401k with company matching, and life insurance.
Rate: $80.00 to $90.00/hr. w2
JN -72
Responsibilities:

• Build the governance framework from the ground up, including ownership models, classification taxonomies, data contracts, quality SLAs, and lineage standards.
• Implement and administer governance tooling such as Cyera, Alation, Atlan, Apache Atlas, or open-source equivalents.
• Engineer data quality rules in Databricks and SQL platforms and integrate controls into CI/CD pipelines.
• Design metadata management architecture for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data including image, audio, and video.
• Write and enforce data contracts between producers and consumers across the organization.
• Partner with Data Engineering to embed governance checkpoints into ingestion, transformation, and serving layers.
• Drive GDPR, CCPA, and sector-specific compliance through technical enforcement at the data layer.
• Report governance health metrics including data quality scores, lineage coverage, policy compliance rates, and data incident MTTR.
• Define and maintain an enterprise data catalog with full lineage, ownership, and classification metadata.
• Establish and enforce naming conventions, schema standards, and model governance across domains.
• Architect and oversee master data management strategy and implementation.
• Lead data mesh or data product governance models as appropriate.
• Deploy and administer platforms for catalog, lineage, quality, and access control.
• Build automated data quality pipelines with profiling, monitoring, and alerting integrated with orchestration tools such as Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect.
• Implement column-level and row-level security in data warehouses including SQL Server, Databricks, BigQuery, and Redshift.
• Configure data masking, tokenization, and dynamic access policies.
• Own and automate the data classification engine for PII, sensitive, and regulated data.
• Instrument data observability tooling such as Monte Carlo, Acceldata, or open-source equivalents.
• Translate GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2, and HIPAA requirements into enforceable technical controls.
• Operationalize retention, deletion, and SAR workflows with Security and Legal.
• Define and audit RBAC and ABAC models across platforms.
• Run quarterly data audits and produce board-ready governance reports.
• Establish and run the Data Governance Council and define roles for Data Owners, Stewards, and Consumers.
• Embed governance requirements into SDLC and data product lifecycles and enable self-service within guardrails.
• Act as escalation point for data quality incidents, access disputes, and compliance breaches.
• Plan and deliver milestones: 1-30 days assess landscape, 30-90 days stand up tooling and taxonomy, 90-180 days ship automated quality and enforce contracts, 6-12 months enterprise rollout and auditable posture.

Experience Requirements:

• 6-10 years in data engineering, data architecture, or analytics engineering, including 3 or more years focused on data governance or data platform roles.
• Proven record building and implementing a governance program at scale.
• Hands-on experience deploying a data catalog and integrating it with active pipelines.
• Experience writing and enforcing data contracts in multi-team, multi-cloud environments.
• Ability to translate regulatory requirements into platform-level technical controls.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives with engineering, product, legal, and compliance.
• Technical skills: advanced SQL, Python for pipelines and automation, Azure, Databricks; familiarity with Google Cloud Platform or AWS is beneficial.
• Knowledge of governance, quality, lineage, and observability tools such as Cyera, Alation, Atlan, Apache Atlas, Great Expectations, dbt tests, Soda Core, Monte Carlo, OpenLineage, and Marquez.
• Access control design experience including RBAC, ABAC, column masking, and row-level security.
• MDM design and tooling exposure such as Informatica or Reltio.
• Basic Terraform or cloud IAM for policy automation.

Recruitment Transparency Notice

Eliassen Group values transparency in our recruitment practices. Please be advised that Eliassen Group utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) tools as part of its initial application screening and hiring process. You may receive email and SMS notifications from the Eliassen Virtual Recruiting Team (, ) inviting you to complete a brief voice screening as part of your application process. These tools assist our hiring teams in different ways, including but not limited to, assistance in reviewing application materials to help identify candidates whose qualifications most closely match the requirements of the position. All AI-assisted evaluations and responses are reviewed by human recruiters before any hiring decisions are made. The use of AI in our process is intended to support fairness, efficiency, and consistency, and Eliassen Group takes measures to prevent bias or discrimination in connection with its hiring practices. By proceeding, you acknowledge, agree, and consent to Eliassen Group's use of these tools, including AI tools, as part of the application and hiring process.
Skills, experience, and other compensable factors will be considered when determining pay rate. The pay range provided in this posting reflects a W2 hourly rate; other employment options may be available that may result in pay outside of the provided range.
W2 employees of Eliassen Group who are regularly scheduled to work 30 or more hours per week are eligible for the following benefits: medical (choice of 3 plans), dental, vision, pre-tax accounts, other voluntary benefits including life and disability insurance, 401(k) with match, and sick time if required by law in the worked-in state/locality.
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About Eliassen Group:
Eliassen Group is a strategic consulting firm that helps organizations reach further and achieve more through our technology, business advisory, and life sciences solutions. For nearly 40 years, we have combined exceptional people, deep domain expertise, and intelligent capabilities to expand our clients' capacity and accelerate meaningful outcomes. We are driven by a purpose to positively impact the lives of our employees, clients, consultants, and the communities we serve.
Eliassen is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team from a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We are an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer and all employment decisions are based on merit, performance, and business needs. Eliassen does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender identity or expression, sexual preference or orientation, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions), marital status, creed, religion, physical or mental disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, age, ancestry, national origin, citizenship status, prohibited criminal record inquiries of applicants and employees, or any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws.
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