Senior Data Governance Engineer

Assent is the leading AI native platform for supply chain sustainability and compliance, trusted by complex manufacturers and distributors around the world. Built and backed by experts who have led global compliance programs, our unified platform combines advanced AI, regulatory expertise, and the world’s largest supply chain data network to help organizations reduce risk, lower operational costs, and build trust across every tier of the value chain. From human rights and responsible sourcing to PFAS reporting and Digital Product Passports, Assent transforms regulatory complexity into actionable insights that drive real business outcomes.

With over 900 team members across India, North America, Malaysia, the EU, and Kenya and more than 1,000 customers globally, Assent brings together global perspective and deep domain expertise. Our hybrid work model enables teams to collaborate effectively across regions while staying connected to the communities where they live and work. As a certified B Corporation, we meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. This reflects our commitment to building technology that drives business performance while creating long-term value for people and the planet.

People First. Technology Forward.

Our commitment to People, Culture & Community (PCC) is rooted in building a diverse, inclusive, and high-performing team. We recruit and retain team members with a range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, while fostering a culture of belonging where all Assentees are respected, supported, and empowered to contribute.

As we continue to embed AI into how we work, we do so thoughtfully, enhancing human potential, supporting better decision-making, and prioritizing appropriate oversight, privacy, and fairness.

At Assent, we value your privacy and are committed to maintaining transparency in how we handle your personal information. As part of our talent acquisition and management processes, we may use AI technologies to support activities such as resume screening, candidate communication, and talent analytics.

We are seeking a technically skilled and detail-oriented Senior Data Governance Specialist to join our Data Governance and Management team. This role is responsible for defining, enforcing, and operationalizing data governance policies; strengthening access controls and security; overseeing metadata standards in partnership with the metadata management function; and ensuring traceability and compliance across systems and domains. The Senior Data Governance Specialist will work closely with cross‑functional teams to ensure data is governed responsibly, securely, and in alignment with regulatory and audit requirements.

This is a key position for supporting organization‑wide data initiatives, ensuring that business decisions are powered by reliable, accurate, and trusted data, as we continue to build out our data governance and management function within the Product organization at Assent. The Senior Data Governance Specialist is a hands-on role that collaborates closely with partners across the engineering, security, legal/compliance, and product organizations, and serves to solve core governance challenges in our data ecosystem.

Key Requirements & Responsibilities 

• Own the development, enforcement, and lifecycle of data governance policies (access, classification, retention, exceptions) implemented as code with Open Policy Agent (OPA) and integrated into CI/CD.
• Implement and audit RBAC/ABAC; coordinate periodic access reviews, segregation‑of‑duties controls, and privileged access governance aligned with corporate security.
• Author and maintain data contracts (YAML/dbt) to enforce schema consistency, data ownership, and SLAs.
• Maintain a centralized policy register and SOPs for enforcement, exceptions, approvals, escalations, and reviews; provide enablement and training.
• Partner with the Metadata Management function to define standards for metadata capture, ownership, glossary, and stewardship; align policies with catalog workflows without owning day‑to‑day operations.
• Define requirements and drive coverage for end‑to‑end data lineage with Engineering and Metadata Management to support audit, impact analysis, and change management.
• Establish and report governance KPIs (e.g., policy compliance, access review completion, exception closure time) and publish dashboards for leadership.
• Evaluate and integrate governance tooling with our modern stack (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, dbt) and leverage automation/GenAI for documentation and exception handling.
• Provide recommendations to improve governance practices; ensure alignment with internal policies, privacy standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PII), and audit requirements.
• Provide technical guidance and leadership to other team members.

We strongly value your talent, energy and passion. It will also be valuable to Assent if you have the following qualifications:

• 7+ years of experience in data governance, data management, security, or a similar role.
• A degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Science, or a related field is typically required.
• Hands-on experience with policy‑as‑code and Open Policy Agent (OPA), including authoring and testing policies (e.g., Rego) and integrating them into CI/CD (required).
• Experience administering or implementing data governance/catalog tools such as Atlan or Collibra (required). Experience with Purview or Alation is an asset.
• Deep understanding of metadata and lineage concepts, access control models (RBAC/ABAC), and regulatory considerations (e.g., PII handling, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI‑DSS).
• Proficiency in SQL, Git Hub, Python, SQL Server and experience with BI tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or Sigma.
• Experience with cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery) and data transformation tools (e.g., dbt).
• Exposure to GenAI tools and prompt‑based automation for governance documentation and workflows.
• Ability to build and interpret governance dashboards and communicate findings to both technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Strong problem‑solving skills, attention to detail, and stakeholder management.
• Familiarity with agile work environments and scrum ceremonies.
• Experience working with cross‑functional teams to resolve governance issues and align on standards.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

Life at Assent

Wellness: We believe that you and your family’s well being is important. As a result, we offer vacation time that increases with tenure, comprehensive benefits packages (details vary by country), life leave days and more.

Financial Benefits: It’s not all about the money – well, it’s a little about the money. We understand that financial health is important and we offer a competitive base salary, a corporate bonus program, retirement savings options and more.

Life at Assent: There is purpose beyond your work. We provide our team members with flexible work options, volunteer days and opportunities to get involved in corporate giving initiatives.

Lifelong Learning: At Assent, curiosity is not only valued but encouraged. You will receive professional development days that are available to you the day you start.

At Assent, we are committed to growing and sustaining an environment where our team members feel included, valued, and heard. Our diversity and equal opportunity practices are guided and championed by our Diversity and Inclusion Working Group and our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).

Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion includes recruiting and retaining team members from diverse backgrounds and experiences, and fostering a culture of belonging where all team members are included, treated with dignity and respect, promoted on their merits, and placed in positions to contribute to business success.

If you require assistance or accommodation throughout any part of the interview and selection process, please contact [email protected] and we will be happy to help.  

We use AI to support parts of our recruitment process, such as note-taking and initial shortlisting based on job-related qualifications. AI does not make hiring decisions. All candidates will speak with a real person, and final decisions are always made by our recruitment team.