Data Governance Manager/Senior Manager - Hybrid

The Opportunity:

TrueCar is a leading automotive digital marketplace operating at the intersection of car shoppers, Certified Dealers, and OEMs. Our business runs on data: shopper behavior and pricing data, OEM incentive and marketing data, dealer inventory and transaction data, and increasingly, TrueCar+ end-to-end purchase and financing data. As that data footprint grows across products, partners, and platforms, we need strong governance to keep it accurate, well-understood, secure, and compliant.

We're hiring a Data Governance Manager (or Senior Manager) to build and maintain TrueCar's enterprise data landscape: a living, authoritative map of what data we collect, where it comes from, where it lives, how long we keep it, and who can touch it. You'll work across Data Platform/Engineering, Legal & Privacy, Security, Dealer & OEM Product, Marketing Solutions, and Consumer Product teams to bring order and accountability to how consumer, transaction, and vehicle data move through TrueCar's systems — and you'll be a key driver of our SOC 2 compliance program.

The ideal candidate will be located near Santa Monica, CA, and available to work in our headquarters office as needed.

How you will contribute to TrueCar’s success:

• Enterprise Data Landscape & Lineage
• • Build and maintain a full inventory of TrueCar's core data domains: consumer/shopper data (leads, profiles, contact info, on-site behavior, credit pre-qualification inputs), transaction data (TrueCar+ purchases, financing submissions, trade-in appraisals, dealer/OEM incentive redemptions), and vehicle data (VIN-level inventory, pricing, Value Report/pricing certificate data, OEM incentives).
  • Document end-to-end data flows: consumer intake via TrueCar.com, the mobile app, and affinity partner sites (Sam's Club, AAA, Navy Federal, American Express, etc.); dealer inventory and pricing feeds; OEM incentive and marketing data; downstream flows into the data warehouse, CRM/lead distribution systems, and analytics/ML pipelines used for personalization and lead scoring.
  • Maintain data flow diagrams and a searchable data catalog (source, system of record, transformations, consuming teams) that stays current as TrueCar and new affinity partnerships evolve.
  • Classify data assets by sensitivity (PII, financial/credit-related data, dealer-confidential pricing data, regulated data) and maintain consistent tagging across catalog and platform tooling.
  • Partner with Data Engineering to instrument lineage tracking so new pipelines are captured automatically, not through manual after-the-fact documentation.
• Storage & Retention
• • Maintain the system-of-record inventory: which platform stores each data domain (data warehouse, operational databases, CRM/lead management, data lake, third-party SaaS tools used by Marketing Solutions and Dealer Products).
  • Define and document retention schedules by data type — e.g., active shopper/lead data, TrueCar+ transaction and financing records, dealer/OEM contractual data, marketing and advertising data — in partnership with Legal on requirements such as state privacy laws, FCRA-adjacent handling of credit-related information, and TCPA/CAN-SPAM considerations for consumer outreach data.
  • Drive automated enforcement of retention and deletion policies with Data Engineering; audit for stale, duplicated, or orphaned data across environments (production, analytics sandboxes, vendor exports).
  • Support secure decommissioning of data when partner relationships (affinity partners, dealers, data vendors) end.
• Access Governance
• • Maintain a current access inventory: which roles, teams, and systems can access each data domain, and the business justification for that access.
  • Implement least-privilege access controls in partnership with Security/IT, including role-based access for internal teams and scoped, contractually-bounded access for dealer and OEM data-sharing integrations.
  • Own periodic access reviews and certifications; manage the access request/approval workflow for new systems, reports, and integrations touching consumer, transaction, or vehicle data.
  • Monitor and remediate over-privileged or unused access as part of ongoing governance hygiene.
• SOC 2 & Broader Compliance
• • Serve as a core contributor to TrueCar's SOC 2 Type II compliance program: maintain evidence for data governance-related controls (data classification, retention, access reviews, data flow documentation) across audit cycles.
  • Partner with Security and Internal Audit to remediate control gaps identified during SOC 2 readiness assessments and annual audits; track corrective action items to closure.
  • Support additional compliance and audit needs as they arise — e.g., CCPA/CPRA and other state privacy law obligations, dealer/OEM data-sharing agreement audits, and vendor security/data-handling reviews.
  • Maintain documentation (policies, control narratives, process runbooks) in a state that's audit-ready year-round, not just during audit season.
• Program Ownership & Cross-Functional Enablement
• • Own and evolve TrueCar's data governance policies and standards: classification, retention, access, data quality, and data-sharing agreements with dealers, OEMs, and affinity partners.
  • Embed governance requirements into the design phase of new products and pipelines (e.g., TrueCar+ feature launches, new affinity partner integrations) by partnering early with Engineering and Product.
  • Support consumer data subject requests (access, deletion, opt-out) with accurate lineage and retention data.
  • Track data quality issues at their source and drive resolution with data-owning teams.
  • Report on data governance maturity, open risks, and remediation roadmaps to Data & Analytics leadership and relevant governance/risk committees.
  • Develop and deliver training so teams across TrueCar understand governance policies and their own data responsibilities.

Your Expertise: 

• 5+ years in data governance, data management, data privacy, or a related discipline — marketplace, fintech, or automotive experience is a strong plus.
• Hands-on experience with data catalog/governance tooling (e.g., Collibra, Alation, Atlan, Purview) and cloud data warehouse platforms (e.g., Redshift).
• Direct experience supporting SOC 2 (or similar frameworks like ISO 27001) audits — building control evidence, working with auditors, and closing remediation items.
• Working knowledge of consumer privacy and data-handling regulations relevant to a consumer marketplace (CCPA/CPRA, TCPA/CAN-SPAM, FCRA-adjacent handling of credit data).
• Strong SQL skills for data discovery and validation, and comfort working directly in warehouse/data platform environments.
• Ability to translate complex, cross-system data flows into clear documentation for both engineers and business stakeholders.
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills — this role partners daily with Engineering, Legal, Security, Marketing Solutions, and Dealer/OEM Product teams.
• Experience building or maturing a governance program from an early stage is a strong plus.

Bonus points for:

• Experience with dealer, OEM, or affinity-partner data-sharing ecosystems.
• Familiarity with consent management and data subject request (DSAR) tooling.
• Exposure to AI/ML data pipelines and the governance considerations around model training data and personalization.

TrueCar does not accept unsolicited agency submissions.

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