Data Governance Business Analyst

Note: This is Onsite/Hybrid and needs local candidates or within a 50-mile Radius.

Role : Data Governance Business Analyst

Location: NYC, NY (Onsite/Hybrid)

Duration: 12 Months
MOI : Telephonic & Skype

Primary Skills: SQL, Python, Atlan or Alation, Data modeling, metadata, glossary, lineage, stewardship workflows.

Job Description:
The Data Governance Business Analyst is a strategic and hands-on role responsible for translating business objectives into an actionable data governance operating model covering policy, metadata, lineage, quality, privacy, and stewardship.
You will serve as the connective tissue between business stakeholders, data producers/consumers, and platform engineering, ensuring that critical data is discoverable, trusted, compliant, and ready to power analytics, AI, and regulatory reporting.
In this role, you will configure and scale leading governance platforms such as Atlan or Alation to catalyze adoption and embed governance into daily workflows.
That includes designing business glossaries and taxonomies, automating metadata ingestion and end-to-end lineage, tagging and classifying sensitive data, and enabling issue management and policy attestations.
You will leverage APIs and lightweight scripting to integrate with modern data stacks (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks ), BI tools (Tableau, Power BI), and enterprise systems (ServiceNow/Jira, SSO/RBAC), creating a seamless, value-driven governance ecosystem.
Beyond platform enablement, you ll lead stakeholder workshops to define critical data elements (CDEs), ownership models, and data SLAs, orchestrate change management and training to cultivate data literacy, and establish a measurable KPI framework to demonstrate value, improving coverage, quality, and policy compliance while reducing risk and time-to-knowledge.
Your work will directly accelerate self-service analytics and AI readiness by improving trust in data, clarifying definitions, and reducing duplicated effort and rework across teams.
Success in this position looks like rapid onboarding of priority sources, robust lineage for critical pipelines, high adoption by data citizens, and demonstrable improvements in data quality and compliance posture.
You will continuously iterate the governance roadmap, partnering with leaders to align investments to business outcomes, and using metrics to guide decisions and communicate progress transparently.
What you will drive:
Clear ownership and stewardship with an operating model.
A living business glossary tied to real assets and usage.
Automated metadata and lineage that shorten impact analysis and root-cause cycles.
Integrated data quality and issue remediation workflows that reduce MTTR.
Policy and privacy controls embedded into data access and retention processes.
Adoption programs - playbooks and enablement - that turn governance into a habit, not a hurdle.
Key Responsibilities:
Governance design and analysis: define CDEs, ownership, policies, and standards.
Platform configuration/admin (potentially Atlan or Alation): set up catalogs, glossaries, lineage, tags, policies, workflows, roles/permissions, and SSO.
Source onboarding and automation: connect priority data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks), automate metadata scanning and lineage, and troubleshoot runs.
Metadata and integrations: model business/technical/privacy metadata; integrate with ETL/ELT, data quality/observability, ticketing, and BI via APIs/automation.
Data quality and compliance: implement DQ rules/SLAs for CDEs; classify sensitive data; enforce access/retention policies; support audits (GDPR/CCPA/HIPAA/SOX).
Adoption and change management: deliver training/playbooks, drive communities of practice, manage Agile ceremonies, and maintain a governance roadmap.
Reporting and KPIs: track coverage, quality, lineage, policy adherence, user adoption, and value realization; publish dashboards and updates.
Qualifications:
Experience: 4-8 years as a Data Governance/Management BA; 2 years hands-on with either Atlan or Alation.
Technical: strong SQL and data modeling; metadata, glossary, lineage, stewardship workflows; basic scripting (e.g., Python, SQL).
Ecosystem: familiarity with cloud (AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platform), data platforms (Snowflake/Databricks), ETL/ELT and observability (e.g., dbt, ADF), ticketing (ServiceNow/Jira), and BI (Tableau/Power BI).
Governance & compliance: experience with privacy/regulatory requirements and internal controls; regulated industry exposure is a plus.
Soft skills: excellent facilitation, documentation, stakeholder management, communication, and change management.
Day-to-Day Activities:
Host workshops to define CDEs, data contracts, and ownership models.
Configure metadata ingestion and lineage jobs; troubleshoot connector runs.
Design and iterate catalog/glossary taxonomies and tagging strategies.
Build and refine stewardship and policy workflows; manage approvals and SLAs.
Partner with security/legal on data classification and access governance.
Maintain a prioritized backlog; publish a roadmap and release notes.
Track and report adoption, coverage, and quality improvements to leadership.