Alation Automation Engineer

Role: Alation Automation Engineer
Type: Contract (Long-Term)
Location: New Jersey — Hybrid (3 days onsite/week)

Overview

Looking for an experienced Alation specialist to architect, automate, and govern an enterprise-scale data catalog and metadata management platform. This is a hands-on architecture role — not just administration — covering the full lifecycle from platform design through security, integrations, lineage, and governance adoption.

What They'll Do

• Architecture & Deployment: Define the target-state Alation setup — Cloud vs. customer-managed, sizing, HA/DR, upgrade strategy
• Metadata & Ingestion: Manage metadata extraction (MDE), query log ingestion (QLI), and profiling across warehouses, lakes, BI tools, and ETL platforms
• Connectivity: Build/maintain OCF connectors and the Alation Agent; develop custom connectors and API-based ingestion where native support doesn't exist
• Lineage: Architect end-to-end lineage — both automated and custom (via Lineage API) to fill pipeline gaps
• Catalog Design: Build out the catalog information model — custom fields, templates, object hierarchies, business glossary, Data Governance App/Policy Center
• Security: Implement SSO/SAML, SCIM/LDAP provisioning, RBAC, service accounts, credential/data source authentication
• Integrations: Connect with Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, dbt, Tableau/Power BI via REST APIs and Alation Analytics
• Governance: Set platform standards/guardrails, review changes, monitor health/adoption, advise leadership on stewardship and curation strategy

Must-Haves

• 8+ years in data platform/architecture roles, including 3+ years hands-on with Alation (implementation & admin)
• Deep knowledge of Alation architecture, OCF, MDE/QLI, lineage, REST API/SDK
• Strong SQL + experience with a major cloud data platform (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, or Redshift)
• Python (or equivalent) for automation, bulk metadata loads, custom connectors
• Familiarity with data governance frameworks (DAMA/DMBOK) and privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA)
• Track record of translating governance requirements into platform design and driving adoption

Nice-to-Haves

• Alation certifications (Admin, Architect, or Connector Development)
• On-prem-to-Cloud Alation migration experience
• Exposure to Collibra or Purview (comparative catalog architecture)
• Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform), Kubernetes, CI/CD experience