IT Specialist, Enterprise Applications - Analytics Governance & DevOps

At Saputo, we bring good to the table by making high‑quality products, investing in our people, and supporting communities around the world. As a top 10 global dairy processor, we value contributions that matter and strive to foster an inclusive, growth‑driven work environment. Ready to bring your best?

Overview of the role:

Saputo is seeking a highly skilled and motivated Analytics Governance & DevOps Specialist to join our Data Engineering & Analytics team. Reporting to the Senior Director of Data Engineering & Analytics , this role is accountable for defining, operationalizing, and enforcing analytics governance and DevOps practices leveraging across the enterprise analytics ecosystem. This role plays a critical part in ensuring analytics platforms and data products are governed, secure, auditable, reliable, and consistently delivered, while enabling scale, self‑service, and speed through modern DevOps and DataOps practices. The role works at the intersection of business, data, security, architecture, and platform operations.

How you will make contributions that matter:

• Establish and maintain trust in data & analytics by embedding governed, quality, auditability, and reliability. Enabling confident decision‑making across the organization.
• Accelerate delivery of data products and insights by implementing efficient, automated DevOps processes and standards.
• Reduce risk and ensure compliance by embedding governance, security, and auditability into both analytics platforms and deployment pipelines.
• Ensure clear alignment and identification of roles and responsibilities across the organization, working closely with IT teams, business teams and stakeholders. Presenting recommendations and influencing future state evolution with organization growth and development.
• Help shape the future of Analytics within the organization by influencing strategy, governance framework and models.
• Work closely with the Analytics Architects, Data Engineers and Data Analyst to align, implement and adopt standards and processes.
• Maintain Governance and DevOps Roadmaps.
• Conduct research on market trends to influence our continued governance and DevOps growth plan.
• Build organizational awareness on key data topics and governance, including facilitation of semi‑annual Analytics CoE meetings with IT and business data owners.

Key Responsibilities:

Governance

• Develop and maintain enterprise‑wide analytics governance frameworks, standards, workflows and best practices fit for Saputo.
• Define and operationalize processes for:
  • Roles and Responsibilities
  • Data Integrity, Data Dictionary / Business Glossary Governance
  • Metadata Management and Lineage
  • Access control and Data Security
  • Compliance with internal and regulatory standards
  • Development Standards and Release Management
• Collaborate closely with business stakeholders, IT teams, Security, and Enterprise Architecture to align governance initiatives with organizational goals.
• Partner with Microsoft Fabric platform administrators and Architects to ensure governance standards are embedded within the platform.
• Drive adoption and enablement through documentation, training, and stakeholder engagement.
• Support FinOps and cost optimization through governance‑driven insights.

DevOps

• Own the DevOps strategy and implementation for analytics and data engineering solutions.
• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines for data workflows, analytics assets, and platform components.
• Establish standards and guiding principles working closely with Analytics Architects for:
  • Version control
  • Testing
  • Release management
  • Environment management (Dev/Test/Prod)
  • Workspace standards
  • Naming Standards
  • Documentation Standards and Templates
• Monitor and optimize DevOps processes to ensure reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Implement governance controls within DevOps pipelines to ensure compliance and auditability.
• Support continuous improvement of deployment processes and optimizations.

Data Quality & Trust

• Define enterprise data quality standards, KPIs, thresholds, and acceptance criteria.
• Govern data quality monitoring, issue management, and remediation workflows in partnership with data owners and data engineering teams.
• Ensure transparency of data quality and lineage to support confident business consumption.

Collaboration & Enablement

• Act as a key liaison between Data Engineering, BI, Security, Architecture and business units.
• Work with Enterprise Architecture to align governance and DevOps practices with broader technology strategy.
• Provide guidance and thought leadership on modern data governance and DevOps practices.
• Influence and drive adoption of standards across teams.

Success Measures

• Clear ownership and accountability for data, with well‑defined data owners and stewards who actively participate in governance, resolve issues efficiently, and support.
• High trust and confidence in analytics outputs, demonstrated by consistent data quality, clearly defined business definitions, and broad adoption of certified data assets across the organisation.
• Sustained adoption of governance standards, with analytics teams consistently following approved data models, security patterns, development standards, and lifecycle processes, resulting in minimal rework and exceptions.
• A secure and compliant data lake, evidenced by role‑based access controls, auditable processes, and ongoing compliance with internal policies and regulatory requirements.
• Acceleration of delivery, where governance provides clear guardrails, tooling, and guidance that empower self‑service and reduce delivery friction rather than creating bottlenecks.
• Clear ownership and accountability for data, with well‑defined data owners and stewards who actively participate in governance, resolve issues efficiently, and support.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
• 3+ years of experience in:
  • Data governance, analytics governance, or data management
  • DevOps practices in data/analytics environments
  • Hands‑on experience with Microsoft data platforms, including Microsoft Fabric, Purview, Azure, DevOps, or similar Data Lake tools.
• Strong understanding of:
  • Business value drivers from Data
  • Data Lake Designs and Value Drivers
  • Self‑Serve Analytics
  • Data and Analytic Lifecycle Management
  • Data Security and Access Controls, RLS CLS, labels, tags
  • CI/CD pipelines and automation
• Experience working in highly motivated cross‑functional environments with both technical and business stakeholders.
• Experience with large scale modern data and analytics transformations within a CPG company (ideally running SAP), implementing new platforms and data lakes, defining new ways of working to drive business value and outcomes through data and analytics in a self‑server culture.
• Serve as a primary liaison facilitating effective communication and collaboration among Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, Security, Architecture teams, and various business units.
• Familiarity with data cataloging, lineage, and quality tools.
• Knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements (e.g., GDPR, SOX, etc.).
• (Preferred) Certifications in Azure, DevOps, or data management are an asset.
• Key Competencies
  • Strategic thinking with strong execution skills
  • Excellent communication and stakeholder management
  • Problem‑solving and analytical mindset
  • Ability to influence and drive change across teams
  • Strong attention to detail and governance discipline

We support and take care of our employees and their families by offering:

• Generous and complete benefit coverage with group insurance
• Group retirement plan with employer contribution
• Telemedicine and assistance program for employees and their families
• Employee Share Ownership Plan with an employer match
• Paid Parental Leave program
• Paid time off: Sick days, floater days and volunteer day off
• Opportunity to contribute to a collective RRSP & TFSA
• Training and development programs
• Saputo Flex Program, flexible work environment (schedule/location/time off) according to department needs
• Organized activities for employees and their families
• Advantageous discounts on Saputo products

Salary:

$102,075 to $133,975. Salary offers will vary commensurate with experience, education, skills, and training.

Statement on AI

All applications are carefully considered by our Talent Acquisition team. Artificial Intelligence tools may be used in screening applications. Artificial Intelligence is not used to assess or select applications.

Saputo is an equal opportunity employer. We support employment equity. Saputo strives to embed diversity and inclusion in its operations and invites candidates from all horizons to join its family. Saputo welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations up to the point of undue hardships are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.