Position Summary

About Murmuration/What We Do

Murmuration is a political strategy organization that is transforming the politics of education so that every child can benefit from equal access to equitable and high-quality public schools.  

We empower campaigns, advocates, and organizers to better engage and mobilize communities to demand improvements to the public education system. We advise and support our partners in their efforts to plan and execute successful, data-driven electoral, organizing, and advocacy campaigns so that together we can transform the politics of education. And we build political influence, craft strategies, leverage data, and develop technology that enable our partners to accelerate progress, particularly those in traditionally marginalized communities. 

Who We Are

Our team includes experts and innovators in data, analytics, and strategy. We are former teachers, organizers, data scientists, nonprofit executives, political campaign veterans, and more – and we are looking for people whose passion and expertise can help improve our work and realize our vision. 

Background

Murmuration’s role is to support organizations and communities through our political systems, to raise the profile of the issue of public education such that more Americans will prioritize the needs of our students, and to leverage politics to help to create the broader context in which those on the front lines with our children can thrive. We are focused on transforming the politics of education—partnering with organizations across the country committed to organizing parents and communities around the issues of public education and educational equity, electing to office and holding accountable local leaders who will make improving public K-12 schools a priority, and advocating for policy changes with the goal of improving outcomes for children. To do this, we believe that it is critical that all of the political stakeholders—electoral organizations, advocacy and organizing groups, charter associations, networks of schools, districts, elected officials, and voters—contribute to a strong and politically savvy education sector that works together toward a common vision of improving public education.

About the Position

The Senior Data Manager will join our team within our Data Management function as one of the primary individuals responsible for the data sets being delivered across our products and services. We have a robust infrastructure managed within the team that delivers large amounts of data to critical downstream applications and use cases. Working with our engineers, data scientists and other data managers, this role will be responsible for both ongoing operational data management within these pipelines as well as strategic projects that will meet the expectations of our changing and growing data sets.

The day-to-day work will include supporting the loading, cleansing, and reporting of data while also performing data operations and data analysis-related tasks associated with our plans to evolve our products and services. This individual will work on key organizational projects that will allow them exposure to our strategic work through data. These projects include the evaluation and implementation of new data sets with all the accompanying support considerations: Data Operations, Data Quality, and Data Governance.

Members of the Data Team are expert problem solvers, familiar with modern databases, SQL, and Python, who can deal with escalated issues involving data discrepancies and other data mysteries. You will become familiar with how our products and models are utilizing data to enable our mission and provide input and thought leadership in how Murmuration’s capabilities can further drive our Partner’s activity. 

Note: At Murmuration, we are committed to becoming an even more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace. To this end, all staff members are expected to sit on and actively participate in DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) subcommittees. These subcommittees work to ensure that DEI is embedded in everything we do.

Key Responsibilities

The ideal candidate will:

• Develop a deep understanding of voter file data and its use in the electoral and organizing/advocacy political space;
• Codify and evolve data standards that define how data should be set up to ensure it can be sourced and managed to satisfy data requirements;
• Work with Data Engineers on the implementation of data management processes according to identified requirements;
• Plan and execute data testing plans to ensure existing and new data processes are executing according to requirements;
• Participate in data analysis via data discovery, exploration, investigation, and impact assessments. Apply best practices and illustrate understanding via data flows of systems and processes;
• Lead data profiling and data preparation by identifying gaps and qualifying data;
• Validate data by verifying against requirements and success criteria;
• Lead understanding by researching business processes and documenting inconsistent and incomplete data, value misinterpretations, and misclassified data;
• Lead data sourcing activity including Identifying the appropriate data sources and map the data from source to target;
• Maintain a central data catalog and dictionary to help people navigate the data universe available to them; and
• Provide clear and effective communications with stakeholders including the necessary project management artifacts to ensure alignment across teams.

Who You Are

The ideal candidate will have:

• 5+ years in operational data management activities including data collection, data mapping, and data reporting for strategic data sets;
• Experience with multiple of the data management disciplines, such as Data Quality, Data Governance, Data Operations, Data Profiling, and Metadata Management;
• Experience managing large data sets including leading projects that have gone through the full data management lifecycle;
• Demonstrated expertise in creating requirement documentation for diverse leaders and teams to align on key architectural and technical decisions and direction;
• Experience leading data governance related initiatives and the creation and deployment of policies, processes, and tools to facilitate the ability to find, understand, and trust Murmuration’s data assets;
• An ability to collaborate with others to define and build solutions that find high levels of reuse and create enthusiasm within both the product and development community;
• Proven ability to learn new business and technology domains quickly, creating value and direction in an agile and fluid work environment;

• Strong problem solving skills as well as the ability to manage several tasks/projects concurrently and prioritize work effectively;
• Strong communication skills to interact effectively with various internal and external stakeholders to develop data strategy and collaborative partnerships;
• An unquenchable desire to identify and fix data issues in a large, complex data environment; we rely on you to be proactively hunting for issues and not waiting to be reactive;
• Moderate knowledge of SQL including creating complex queries and manipulating large data sets; and
• Moderate Experience in scripting languages (Python, etc.) or evidence of the desire and ability to learn.

Location, Compensation, and Benefits

The Senior Data Manager is a full-time, salaried position with a comprehensive benefits package. It is based anywhere in the U.S. with location preferred in New York City. Minimum salary for this position is $90,000 but is commensurate with experience.

An Equal-Opportunity Employer with a Commitment to Diversity

Murmuration is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, and as an organization committed to diversity and the perspective of all voices, we consider applicants equally of race, gender, color, sexual orientation, religion, marital status, disability, political affiliation, and national origin. We reasonably accommodate staff members and/or applicants with disabilities, provided they are otherwise able to perform the essential functions of the job.