Data Governance Consultant Job Township of Bridgewater New Jersey USA,IT/Tech

Location: Township of Bridgewater

Role Overview

Our client's Enterprise Data Retention and Governance team is hiring a Data Governance Consultant to help drive the maturity of Data Governance capabilities across the enterprise. You will work across business areas to identify, collect and analyze critical data, document how it is created and used, and make sure it is governed, accurate and retained according to policy. This is a hands‑on analyst role that connects business teams, Legal, Compliance, Cybersecurity and technology, and turns governance standards into practical decisions about the data each area depends on.

Key Responsibilities Drive functional area adoption of Data Governance

Work with leaders across various functional departments to develop core Data Governance teams to drive initiatives
Define and maintain data definitions, classifications, business rules and metadata for critical data elements
Apply the team's governance standards, including retention requirements and classification standards within each business area
Resolve data issues and conflicts by working with the people who create and use the data. Develop escalation paths to resolve and audit data-related issues.

Analysis And Requirements

Collect, inventory and analyze critical data from multiple systems and business areas
Document data sources, data flows, lineage and process maps, and identify gaps and risks
Gather and write business and data requirements, and translate them for technical and platform teams

Governance and collaboration

Monitor data quality against agreed measures and lead remediation of recurring problems
Work with Legal, Finance, IT and business owners to confirm that data handling meets policy and regulatory needs
Ensure data is properly classified according to policy and disposed and archived per the data retention policy and standards
Support the Retention Specialist and platform teams by supplying business context for retention decisions
Run working sessions with stakeholders, keep decisions and procedures documented, and support audits and reviews

Required Skills And Experience

4 to 6 years of experience as a Business Analyst, Data Analyst or Data Steward, ideally in data governance, records or information management
Working knowledge of data governance concepts: data ownership, stewardship, data quality, metadata, classification and lineage
Experience gathering requirements and documenting business processes, data flows and data dictionaries
Ability to work with stakeholders in several business areas, including Legal, Compliance and Cybersecurity to drive maturity and initiatives
Understanding of data retention, privacy and regulatory requirements and how they affect business data
Strong written and verbal communication, with the ability to explain data topics to non-technical audiences
Organized and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage several areas and priorities at the same time

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with data catalog or governance tools such as Microsoft Purview, Collibra or Alation
Strong analytical skills, including SQL for querying and profiling data and Excel for analysis, nice to have
Certifications such as CBAP, CDMP, CIP or IGP, nice to have
Experience with data quality tools and master or reference data management , nice to have
Experience with legal or finance data, including audit and regulatory reporting
Background in a regulated or large enterprise environment, such as healthcare, higher education or financial services
Bachelor's degree in business, information systems, data science or a related field, or equivalent experience