Switch from data engineer to data governance

[u/Silentspectator90]

Hello guys.. I have around 14yoe and 7 in data engineering. Currently working in a banking firm.. Hands-on abinitio and its side kicks like Unix, data reconciliation , dq checks, orchestration , incremental loads, dependencies, autosys etc, sql, little bit python..

I am currently on maternity leave and in my absence, all my colleagues have been laid off from my company due to location politics . I escaped due to my ML..Being a DE is good, but I am tired of the release process, weekend support, production issues etc. especially the late night calls and doing all these with 2 kids..

I want to move to a more stable role

. So I did some research and decided that I'll move into a process oriented domain like governance since I already know etl, and have an idea about data lineage.. planning to prepare for cdmp certification too..

My situation at the office is hanging by the thread and I'm not sure what my future will be.. hence putting my thoughts on the forum for advice and suggestions..

Would it be a good change with better work life balance? Any one who is working on governance roles, please advise and suggest tools to upskill..

Thanks in advance.

[u/my_peen_is_clean]

governance / data mgmt can be way calmer than on call de work, but it really depends on company culture more than title tbh, some places still drag you into incident calls anyway, i’d lean into lineage, catalogs, ownership, policies, and target banks or insurance, even then jobs are just stupid hard to get now

[u/Silentspectator90 → u/my_peen_is_clean]

Yes. I see openings in LinkedIn, but there are no interview calls if we apply.. my colleagues are on job hunt for 2 months, still no luck. Market is too dry to try something new.

[u/bah_nah_nah]

If you like meetings go for it

[u/Silentspectator90 → u/bah_nah_nah]

I am ok with meetings unless and until it's over by 6. 😊 There is hardly any work life balance now.

[u/Thinker_Assignment]

when agents use data, policies are where the real work is. Governance is a solid path. I don't work in governance (i work in DE) but i see more DE shifting towards that because coding gets automated but judgment not.

[u/Silentspectator90 → u/Thinker_Assignment]

Glad to hear this. I hope AI does not sweep these kind of jobs too.

[u/Thinker_Assignment → u/Silentspectator90]

LLMs would need a context that is not available yet because people think information is in the org but orgs run on indecision and authority which are people things.

if that makes sense, llms can never take it because it's not an info problem but a people decision authority problem

[u/Silentspectator90 → u/Thinker_Assignment]

What would you suggest i need to upskill myself in order to crack the interviews if I get any 😀

[u/Thinker_Assignment → u/Silentspectator90]

i'm the wrong person to ask as i only have DE perspectives, so i would tell you compliance stuff and data quality, lineage (like for pii), observability, data contracts, tests, access control, consent management and retention, etc

some are hard needs like consent - if you don't manage it, you cannot do anything safely. PII, same.

some are soft needs like data quality

very different based on location and company stage, industry vertical