Data Governance SME

Overview:

Steampunk is seeking a Data Governance SME to design, implement, and help operationalize data governance practices — including metadata management, data cataloging, and stewardship workflows — for a large federal client's data environment, ensuring data assets are discoverable, trustworthy, and well-governed. The role also supports assessment of data quality, governance maturity, and AI-related data risk.

Contributions:

• Assess current-state data assets, governance practices, and interoperability constraints, and deliver a Data Management Framework
• Implement and maintain data catalogs, metadata repositories, and business glossaries to improve data discoverability
• Support definition and rollout of data stewardship and ownership models, including issue management and lifecycle processes
• Conduct exploratory data analysis to uncover trends and identify data quality issues informing remediation priorities
• Operate a data-quality remediation tracking process with monthly reporting, supporting identification and remediation of data quality issues
• Facilitate alignment between technical teams and business stakeholders on data definitions, quality expectations, and usage standards
• Support streamlined, user-centered data access-request workflows and access controls, in alignment with data classification principles
• Partner with the Data Architect to ensure the underlying data environment supports accurate, complete, and consistent data, including metadata capture and lineage tracking
• Deliver quarterly data maturity assessments with specific improvement recommendations, including catalog coverage and adoption metrics
• Communicate data quality and governance maturity findings clearly to technical and executive stakeholders
• Support technical analysis behind the AI Compliance and Risk Management Plan's bias and training-data-quality sections, including data origin, quality, and known limitations
• Contribute data lineage and data card documentation supporting the AI Compliance and Risk Management Plan's data origin and quality assessments
• Maintain well-organized, audit-ready documentation of data assessments, findings, and remediation activity

Qualifications:

Required:

• Ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance
• Bachelor's degree, preferably in Information Systems, Data Management, Data Science, Business Analytics, Computer Science, or a related field, and 10+ years of total experience
• 6+ years of data governance, data management, or data science experience
• Demonstrated 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) to assess data quality and structure
• Working knowledge of machine learning/AI training data concepts sufficient to assess data quality, origin, and bias considerations (not hands-on model development)
• Strong written and verbal communication and facilitation skills, with the ability to translate technical data findings for both technical and executive audiences
• Local to Baltimore, MD metro area and willing to go on client site at least 2 days a week

Preferred:

• Experience assessing bias or quality issues in training data for AI/ML use cases
• Federal data governance experience
• Master's degree in a related field
• Experience with data cataloging/governance platforms (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Atlan, Informatica, or cloud-native catalog tools)
• Familiarity with cloud data platforms
• DAMA CDMP (Associate or Practitioner), Collibra Ranger, or Alation Steward certification

About steampunk:

Steampunk is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, bringing new thinking to clients in the Homeland, Federal Civilian, Health and DoD sectors. Through our Human-Centered delivery methodology, we are fundamentally changing the expectations our Federal clients have for true shared accountability in solving their toughest mission challenges. As an employee owned company, we focus on investing in our employees to enable them to do the greatest work of their careers – and rewarding them for outstanding contributions to our growth. If you want to learn more about our story, visit http://www.steampunk.com.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Steampunk participates in the E-Verify program.