Data Quality Associate Jobs in Virginia (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:
Steampunk, Inc. is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, and they are seeking a Data Governance Specialist to help design, implement, and operationalize data governance practices across a modern, cloud-based data ecosystem. The role focuses on enabling effective data use through strong metadata management, data cataloging, stewardship workflows, and governance operating models that align people, processes, and technology.
Responsibilities:
• Implement and maintain enterprise data catalogs, metadata repositories, and business glossaries to improve data discoverability and understanding.
• Partner with Data Engineers and platform teams to automate technical metadata capture, lineage, and schema evolution across data pipelines.
• Support the definition and rollout of governance processes including data ownership, stewardship, issue management, certification, and lifecycle management.
• Facilitate alignment between technical teams and business stakeholders on data definitions, quality expectations, and usage standards.
• Assist in establishing data domains, data products, and stewardship models aligned to modern architectures such as lakehouse , data mesh, or data fabric.
• Coordinate data quality monitoring, issue triage, and remediation workflows in collaboration with engineering and analytics teams.
• Support the implementation of data access controls, classification, tagging, and role-based policies in alignment with Zero Trust principles.
• Contribute to governance documentation including standards, playbooks, operating procedures, and onboarding materials.
• Participate in governance councils, working groups, and stakeholder forums to drive adoption and continuous improvement.
• Help measure governance effectiveness using adoption metrics, data quality indicators, catalog usage, and maturity assessments.
• Support compliance-related activities by ensuring metadata, lineage, and documentation are audit-ready and traceable.
• Assist with tool configuration and integration for governance platforms such as Collibra, Alation, Atlan, Informatica, or cloud-native catalogs.
• Stay current with emerging trends in data governance, metadata automation, and AI-ready data management practices.
Qualifications:
Required:
• Ability to hold a position of public trust with the U.S. government.
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Data Management, Business Analytics, Computer Science, or a related field.
• 2 – 5 years of experience in data governance, data management, analytics enablement, or data platform support roles.
• Hands-on experience with data cataloging and governance tools (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Atlan, Informatica, AWS Glue Data Catalog, Azure Purview/Microsoft Purview).
• Understanding of metadata types (business, technical, operational), data lineage, and schema management concepts.
• Familiarity with modern data platforms (lakehouse, cloud data warehouses, streaming platforms) and how governance integrates into pipelines.
• Experience supporting data quality frameworks, issue management workflows, and stewardship operating models.
• Strong communication and facilitation skills to work effectively with technical teams and business stakeholders.
• Ability to translate governance concepts into practical workflows that support data delivery.
• Familiarity with data privacy, security, and access control concepts in cloud environments.
• Experience with SQL or basic data querying is a plus for understanding data structures and lineage.
Preferred:
• DAMA CDMP (Associate or Practitioner)
• Collibra Ranger / Alation Steward certifications
Company:
Steampunk is anchored by a startup culture with a customer-centered delivery approach, we put our Federal government clients in the center of everything we design, develop, and deliver to drive high-quality mission impacts and user experiences at speed. Founded in 2019, the company is headquartered in Washington, USA, with a team of 501-1000 employees. The company is currently Growth Stage.