Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Governance Developer

💰 $110,000 - $165,000

TechnologyData & AnalyticsComplianceITEngineering

🎯 Role Definition

A Governance Developer is a specialized engineering role focused on the design, development, and implementation of technology solutions that support and automate an organization's data and IT governance frameworks. This professional acts as a crucial bridge between governance policy and technical execution, building the tools, workflows, and integrations necessary to manage data as a strategic asset. They are the architects and builders of the "compliance-as-code" and data stewardship platforms, ensuring that data is trustworthy, secure, and used in a compliant manner across the enterprise. Your work is fundamental in enabling the business to make data-driven decisions with confidence while mitigating risk.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Software Developer (with interest in data or security)
  • Data Analyst / Business Intelligence Developer
  • Data Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Senior Governance Developer / Lead Governance Engineer
  • Data Governance Architect
  • Manager, Data Governance & Technology

Lateral Moves:

  • Senior Data Engineer
  • Cloud Security Engineer
  • Data Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, develop, and deploy custom workflows, dashboards, and user interfaces within core data governance platforms (such as Collibra, Alation, or Informatica Axon) to support data stewardship activities.
  • Engineer and maintain robust API-based integrations between the data governance platform and other enterprise systems, including data catalogs, data quality tools, and master data management (MDM) hubs.
  • Develop and implement automated data quality rules, validation logic, and monitoring scripts using SQL, Python, or other programming languages to continuously assess the health of critical data assets.
  • Build and support data lineage solutions by developing connectors and parsers that automatically trace data flows from source systems to downstream reports and applications.
  • Translate business requirements from data governance councils and stewards into technical specifications for new governance features, functionalities, and automated processes.
  • Implement and configure metadata connectors to scan and harvest technical metadata from various data sources, including relational databases, data lakes, and cloud data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift).
  • Create and manage the technical infrastructure for "compliance-as-code," developing scripts and automated checks to enforce policies like GDPR, CCPA, and internal data handling standards.
  • Customize and extend the data governance tool's metamodel to accurately represent the organization's unique data landscape and business terminology.
  • Develop proof-of-concept projects to evaluate new governance technologies and demonstrate the value of proposed technical solutions to business stakeholders.
  • Author and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, including solution designs, API specifications, and operational runbooks for the governance platforms you build.
  • Write efficient, reusable, and well-tested code for custom governance applications and components, adhering to software development best practices and CI/CD principles.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve complex technical issues related to the governance platform, data integrations, and automated workflows, providing expert-level support to end-users.
  • Collaborate with data architects and data engineers to ensure that new data pipelines and solutions are designed with governance and data quality principles from the outset.
  • Automate the process of linking business glossary terms to technical data assets, enhancing the searchability and understanding of data across the organization.
  • Configure and manage user roles, permissions, and security settings within the data governance tool to ensure appropriate access to sensitive metadata.
  • Develop solutions for mastering and managing reference data, ensuring consistency for key data domains across different enterprise applications.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to investigate data quality issues or fulfill regulatory reporting needs.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader data strategy and roadmap by providing technical insights on the feasibility and effort required for new governance initiatives.
  • Collaborate with various business units and data owners to translate their data-related challenges and needs into tangible engineering requirements and solutions.
  • Participate actively in sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospective ceremonies as part of an agile data engineering or governance team.
  • Provide training and technical guidance to data stewards and other business users to promote the effective use of data governance tools and platforms.
  • Stay current with emerging trends and best practices in the fields of data governance, data management, and development to continuously improve the organization's capabilities.
  • Assist in the performance tuning and optimization of the data governance platform and its underlying database to ensure scalability and responsiveness.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Programming Languages: Advanced proficiency in Python and SQL is essential. Experience with Java, Groovy, or a similar object-oriented language is highly beneficial for platform customization.
  • Data Governance Platforms: Hands-on development experience with one or more leading data governance tools such as Collibra (DGC, Workflows), Alation, or the Informatica Governance Suite (Axon, EDC, IDQ).
  • API & Web Services: Strong experience in developing and consuming RESTful APIs for system integration, including knowledge of JSON/XML data formats.
  • Database & Data Warehousing: Solid understanding of relational and non-relational databases, data warehouses (e.g., Snowflake, Redshift), and data lakes.
  • Cloud Computing: Familiarity with major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and their core data services (e.g., S3, Glue, Lambda, Azure Data Factory).
  • CI/CD & DevOps: Experience with version control systems (e.g., Git) and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
  • Data Modeling: Knowledge of data modeling concepts and techniques, and the ability to understand and interpret data models.

Soft Skills

  • Problem-Solving: A knack for dissecting complex technical and business problems and designing elegant, effective solutions.
  • Communication & Collaboration: Excellent ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and collaborate effectively across diverse teams, including business users, analysts, and engineers.
  • Attention to Detail: Meticulous and thorough in your approach to development, testing, and documentation to ensure high-quality, reliable solutions.
  • Business Acumen: The ability to understand business objectives and how data governance directly contributes to achieving them.
  • Self-Starter: Proactive and able to work independently, taking ownership of projects from conception to completion with minimal supervision.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related engineering discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Management Information Systems
  • Data Analytics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3-7 years of professional experience in a software development, data engineering, or a related technical role.

Preferred:

  • At least 2+ years of direct, hands-on experience in developing and implementing solutions on an enterprise data governance platform (e.g., Collibra, Alation).
Explore More Careers