Data Steward

Overview

Home. There’s no place like it.

And there’s no feeling like helping people create the joy of feeling truly at home. At Dunelm, that’s what we do. We’re the UK\’s number one choice for homewares because we make home life lovelier for our customers. And we’ve crafted a workplace that feels just as welcoming – where you can bring your ideas, be yourself, and feel right at home.

Data Management at Dunelm plays a key part in unlocking the value of data and information for our colleagues in a safe and secure way. Our vision, alongside our broader data & analytics function is to “empower our business to drive the right outcomes from their data in an efficient and confident way”.

Our Data Management team work closely with our wider teams, analytics, data engineering, technology teams and colleagues across Dunelm, enabling them to better manage and own their data to deliver data products that drive value and support our broader business growth plans. We are responsible for equipping our colleagues to steward and understand their data through data policy definition and implementation, process optimisation, data quality measurement, data cataloguing and effective management of master data.

We contribute to shaping our future governance and approach to AI ensuring that good quality, well governed data is at its heart. We also support doing right by our customers – ensuring that data is managed safely and securely in line with GDPR regulations.

What you\’ll be doing

As a Data Steward, you will work with teams across Dunelm to ensure effective stewardship of data. You will be tackling topics of compliance, quality, availability, context and understanding, helping drive efficiencies in our data management capabilities and reduce the time it takes us to get actionable insight. You will have a specific focus on ongoing management and process improvement in relation to our Product Master Data; critical to supporting our Commercial Buyers & Merchandisers, Digital Trading and Supply Chain teams.

• Responsible for establishing data quality rules, benchmarking and tracking metrics against our Product Data.
• Prior experience with MDM (master data management) platforms or experience managing master or reference data in support of retail use cases
• Responsible for metadata management, overseeing the maintenance of a business data dictionary and the business glossary, for the definition and maintenance of Dunelm’s data.
• Contribute to the development of operational best practices for Master Data Management. You are able to influence others to adopt and input into best practices
• Able to articulate complex, abstract concepts in relation to data to audiences unfamiliar with the inner workings of data
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve and automate maintenance of data across systems, people and processes.
• Establishes regular reporting – tracking of requests against SLAs, audit of changes, duplicate and inactive records and data non-conformities.
• Manages the handling and use of data (including data quality and hygiene) and compliance with existing and planned data legislation such as GDPR.

What we\’ll look for in you

Key Behaviours

• Adapting – Being able to respond and commit positively to changing needs without compromising on our data management principles.
• Being Curious – Asking why and seeking to understand to improve knowledge even when outside of your immediate area of expertise.
• Communicating – Providing clear, simple and succinct messages that engage others. Able to articulate sometimes complex and detailed concepts simply to senior stakeholders.
• Connecting – Develop relationships that help build mutual success. You will need to influence across teams and develop relationships based on collaboration and trust.
• Including – Seeking and valuing input from different places to broaden your perspective and to interrogate your own thinking.

Essential Skills

• An analytical mindset with a passion for linking data to real-world business challenges.
• Able to articulate complex, abstract concepts in relation to data to audiences unfamiliar with the inner workings of data.
• Solid understanding of master data implementations and operational best practice of MDM solutions.
• Proven experience working in a Data Stewardship role or similar.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate and collaborate effectively with colleagues at all levels, convey information appropriately, and suggest improvements to processes.
• Able to use data platforms (RDBMS, Snowflake, SQL Server etc) with confidence. Able to use SQL to interrogate databases (selects, joins, CTEs).

Desirable Skills

• Good working understanding of data privacy legislation, specifically UK GDPR and sensitivity classifications.
• Have worked in complex data environments and data migration projects.
• Experience of writing business rules for data validation and exception management within an MDM would be a distinct advantage.
• Familiarity with reporting and analytics solutions, PowerBI, Tableau, QlikView, Thoughtspot etc