Lead, Data Governance

About the role

As Lead, Data Governance you will build and run Alpaca’s data governance and data security program across its lakehouse, analytics tools, and internal data products. You’ll define how data is classified, who can access it and how it is protected, partnering closely with Data Engineering and Data Science to operationalise those standards.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and maintain data governance policies, classification standards, ownership model and exception processes aligned with security and privacy requirements.
• Own data access governance for the lakehouse and analytics stack, including entitlement standards, periodic access reviews and least‑privilege access across Trino, Ranger, Cube, Metabase and related tools.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering to implement technical controls such as Ranger policies, schema restrictions and service‑account management.
• Define data quality standards and help data teams monitor and improve them.
• Maintain up‑to‑date data inventory, metadata and lineage documentation for compliance and audit purposes.
• Review data‑related vendors and new use cases (analytics platforms, reverse ETL, AI query tools, notebooks) with Security, Privacy and Legal.
• Support sensitive and cross‑border data requests, including PII handling and regional data flows.
• Prepare evidence for SOC 2, ISO 27001, CSA STAR, partner security reviews and regulatory examinations.

Required profile

• 5+ years experience in data governance, data security, GRC or privacy engineering.
• At least 2 years working with modern data platforms (lakehouse/warehouse, SQL engines, BI, semantic layers).
• Hands‑on experience building and operating data classification, access‑control or entitlement review programmes.
• Familiarity with cloud data platforms (GCP a plus) and typical analytics tooling.
• Knowledge of privacy and regulatory requirements in financial services (GDPR, CCPA, cross‑border transfers).
• Experience supporting SOC 2, ISO 27001 or similar audits.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills and ability to work effectively with engineering teams.

Required skills

• Trino
• Apache Ranger
• dbt
• Cube
• Metabase
• Airflow
• Iceberg
• Google Cloud Platform
• SQL engines
• BI tools
• Semantic layers

What we offer

• Competitive salary and stock options
• Health benefits
• One‑time home‑office setup allowance (USD $500)
• Monthly stipend (USD $150) via Brex card