Data Management Senior

Location: Buffalo, NY

Remote Type: Hybrid Position

Time Type: Full time

Job Description

Overview:

Responsible for the upkeep, accuracy, and adoption of the Bank’s centralized data cataloging and lineage capabilities. This role focuses on ingestion and curation of logical metadata, integration with data quality rules, identification of enterprise data flow patterns, development of user-friendly data discovery solutions, and ensuring compliance with M&T’s priority data standards.

This position sits at the intersection of business knowledge and technical understanding. The successful candidate is comfortable working with ambiguity, asking the right questions, and translating technical concepts into clear, business-friendly language. While technical fluency is required, this is not a deep engineering role; success is driven by strong communication, analytical thinking, and stakeholder partnership.

Position Responsibilities:

• Engage with business and data stakeholders to inventory Priority Data Use Cases and Critical Data Elements; collect metadata and ensure changes impacting priority data are accurately reflected in M&T’s centralized data catalog.
• Interview subject matter experts and convert complex or technical metadata into definitions that are broadly understood across the bank.
• Review, challenge, and refine draft metadata submitted by stakeholders using a combination of data analysis, business research, and critical thinking.
• Assign consistent business glossary terms to critical data elements and other prioritized data fields.
• Intake, prioritize, design, and execute stakeholder requests for additions and enhancements to the centralized data catalog (not limited to priority data).
• Design, configure, and maintain data cataloging solutions, ensuring full leverage of functionality across business units and fostering broader adoption.
• Support and validate data lineage by understanding enterprise data flow patterns and data processing architecture.
• Run and review SQL queries to spot-check data, validate outputs, and confirm alignment between documented metadata and actual data behavior.
• Develop, publish, and monitor metrics related to metadata completeness and centralized data catalog usage.
• Serve as a subject matter expert for data cataloging and lineage capabilities; create training materials and educate users as needed.
• Maintain audit trails for stakeholder requests, reviews, approvals, and attestations related to priority data.
• Update process documentation, templates, forms, and published guidance as the data cataloging operating model matures.
• Understand and adhere to enterprise risk, regulatory, and data standards; identify and escalate data-related risks as appropriate.
• Maintain M&T internal control standards, including timely implementation of internal and external audit points and addressing issues raised by regulators.
• Complete other related duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications Required:

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 5 years related experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 9 years higher education and/ or work experience, including a minimum of 5 years related experience

• Intermediate knowledge of SQL (minimum requirement) with the ability to run queries, understand SQL logic, and independently spot-check and validate results.
• Experience analyzing large data sets and working with data platforms, systems, tables, and fields.
• Proven ability to translate ambiguous and complex requirements into structured, actionable steps.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Knowledge of banking products, lines of business, and end-to-end business processes.
• Strong critical thinking and persuasion skills, with the confidence to challenge assumptions and metadata inputs constructively.
• Comfort working in environments with ambiguity and minimal upfront structure, independently organizing work and stakeholder requests.

Ideal Qualifications Preferred:

• Experience performing data cataloging and/or data lineage responsibilities within a financial institution.
• Intermediate knowledge of Alteryx, Tableau Prep, Python, or similar analytics and data preparation tools.

• Intermediate knowledge of REST APIs.

• Experience working with hybrid database environments (on-premise and cloud).
• Intermediate knowledge of data governance, metadata management, and data quality frameworks.
• Experience using data cataloging, data lineage, and data visualization tools.
• Experience translating data into insights that answer business questions and support decision-making.
• Master’s or Doctorate degree in Computer Science, Mathematics, Finance, Accounting, Business, or related fields with proven coursework proficiency.

M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $103,000.00 - $171,600.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.

Location

Buffalo, New York, United States of America