Data & AI Governance Senior Specialist

Role Description

At Booking.com, the Data & AI Governance department enables policies, standards, processes and technology for governing data and AI, driving excellence in leveraging secure, trusted, accessible data for data-driven decision making.

About the team:

The Data & AI Governance department enables extending the governance theme of policies, standards, processes and technology for governing data and AI to driving excellence in our approach to leveraging secure, trusted, accessible data for data driven decision making through:

• An overarching Data & AI Policy to include associated standards
• Data & AI Governance, including cataloging, classification, metadata, lineage
• Data Access and Usage Control, in compliance with regulatory requirements
• Data & AI Delivery Governance
• Data & AI Observability and Quality

This enables the maturity of Data and AI capabilities across Booking.com, unlocking data and AI applications as assets for delivering innovative growth opportunities and cost-saving operational efficiencies.

Role Description:

The Senior Data & AI Governance Specialist is an expert in Data & AI Governance. This role will contribute to the strategy execution and implementation of Data & AI Governance frameworks and drive best practice across a broad range of Data & AI capabilities across the company. In particular, this role requires a subject matter expert focused on the end-to-end data lifecycle including defining, implementing, and monitoring data retention, deletion, and legal hold across our data ecosystem. This is a bridge role where you will translate legal and regulatory requirements into governance standards, assist in creating technical Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) and work alongside engineering teams to ensure our data estate remains compliant and governed.

Key to success in this role is the ability to translate an expert level of Data & AI Governance knowledge into communication and storytelling for executive sponsors and key stakeholders while delivering and highlighting tangible benefits for the business.

This role demands skills as an evangelist and a partner, at a time where transformation and modernisation of our data ecosystem is an org-level priority.

Key Job Responsibilities and Duties:

• Contribute to the definition, review, update and roll-out of the Data & AI Governance framework and related standards and guidelines.
• Lead the end-to-end data lifecycle management process by collecting complex retention and deletion requirements from Legal/Privacy teams and translating them into actionable technical standards and PRDs.
• Partner with Product and Engineering teams to design and validate automated deletion workflows, ensuring Right to be Forgotten (RTBF) and statutory retention periods are baked into the data architecture.
• Partner with the Data & AI Governance Solution Architect in ensuring architecture designs and tooling solutions are embedding Data & AI Governance principles and needs throughout the Data & AI lifecycle in all strategic Data & AI initiatives and programs.
• Define and implement the operational framework for Legal Holds, ensuring specific data sets are preserved and excluded from automated deletion cycles when required.
• Draft and maintain the global standard for Data Lifecycle Management (DLM), moving beyond storage to focus on active data minimization and disposal.
• Define and track KPIs for lifecycle health (e.g., deletion success rates, volume of expired data, legal hold coverage) and build monitoring dashboards to ensure compliance.
• Act as the functional lead in validating that new tooling or in-house builds meet the governance Definition of Done for retention and deletion capabilities.
• Collaborate with Risk, Privacy, and Security to ensure alignment between Data Governance policies and the technical execution of DMA, DSA, and GDPR obligations.
• Lead proactive and reactive resolution of Data & AI Governance compliance risks, reporting key KPIs to relevant stakeholders, including the Data & AI Governance boards.
• Ensure alignment between Data & AI governance methodology, Data Privacy procedures and requirements, the IT Information Security strategy and any new regulatory compliance such as DMA/DSA and EU AI Act by working closely with cross-functional teams.

Qualifications and Skills:

• 5+ years’ experience in designing and implementing Data Governance / Management in large-scale organisations; AI Governance experience preferred. Hands-on experience specifically designing and implementing Data Lifecycle Management (DLM), including retention schedules, automated deletion, and archiving strategies.
• Experience with data cataloging tools from the market (Collibra, Informatica, Alation, Atlan, Microsoft Purview, Polaris, etc.).
• Proven track record of working directly with cross-functional teams including Legal/Privacy counsel to interpret regulations and drafting guidelines for product and engineering teams to execute.
• Expert knowledge of Data & AI Governance principles, processes and standards.
• Practical experience with data cataloging (preferably in Collibra), metadata, data classification, data lineage, critical data elements, workflows, and relative tools from the industry, ideally including tool assessment, rollout and management.
• Expert knowledge of implementing and leading Data & AI Governance risk and issue assessment and strategy.
• Good knowledge of Data & AI Regulatory policies, e.g., GDPR, DMA, SOx, EU AI Act, etc., and first-hand experience with regulatory compliance frameworks in complex organizations.
• Experience in setting up a Data Maturity evaluation framework, in identifying and elevating less mature areas.
• Good knowledge of Atlassian Jira and Confluence.

Benefits & Perks - Global Impact, Personal Relevance:

• Annual paid time off and generous paid leave scheme including: parent, grandparent, bereavement, and care leave
• Hybrid working including flexible working arrangements, and up to 20 days per year working from abroad (home country)
• Industry leading product discounts - up to 1400 per year - for yourself, including automatic Genius Level 3 status and Booking.com wallet credit
• Living and working in Amsterdam, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe
• Contributing to a high scale, complex, world renowned product and seeing real-time impact of your work on millions of travelers worldwide
• Working in a fast-paced and performance driven culture
• Opportunity to utilize technical expertise, leadership capabilities and entrepreneurial spirit
• Promote and drive impactful and innovative engineering solutions
• Technical, behavioral and interpersonal competence advancement via on-the-job opportunities, experimental projects, hackathons, conferences and active community participation
• Competitive compensation and benefits package and some great added perks of working in the home city of Booking.com