Principal Architect, Financial Data Governance

Company Description

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, built to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our products help people make powerful connections, discover exciting opportunities, build necessary skills, and gain valuable insights every day. We’re also committed to providing transformational opportunities for our own employees by investing in their growth. We aspire to create a culture that’s built on trust, care, inclusion, and fun – where everyone can succeed.

Join us to transform the way the world works.

Job Description

At LinkedIn, our approach to flexible work is centered on trust and optimized for culture, connection, clarity, and the evolving needs of our business. The work location of this role is hybrid, meaning it will be performed both from home and from a LinkedIn office on select days, as determined by the business needs of the team. 

This role will be based in San Francisco, or Mountain View, CA.  

We are seeking a strategic and technically adept Principal Architect to lead the design and execution of our Financial & Corporate Data Governance architecture. As Finance evolves into a data-driven, AI-enabled function, this role will be foundational in shaping how we govern, manage, and scale our financial data ecosystem.

This individual will serve as the principal technical expert on data governance within our CFO organization and primary partner for engineering in how we architect our systems - bridging the gap between governance policy, business needs, and system capabilities. This role defines and advises on the data governance architecture and collaborates with delivery teams on execution. They will be responsible for translating governance objectives into business and technical requirements to drive scalable data architecture, working closely with the Director of Finance Tech & Systems Strategy to embed data needs into our financial systems roadmap.

This is a senior individual contributor role that will report into our Finance Data Strategy team and align closely with our Finance Technology and Productivity Engineering partners. This role will not directly own reporting infrastructure or data operations, but will work closely with Finance Technology and emerging Data Foundations and Data Triaging teams to ensure governance requirements are embedded into design and execution. The ideal candidate combines deep technical fluency with strong business acumen and a passion for driving clarity across complex, enterprise data landscapes.

• Translate financial and operational strategy into scalable business/technical requirements for data governance across key domains (e.g., customer, channel, product, geo, etc.)
• Ensure that our data governance architecture aligns with business goals, regulatory requirements, and analytics use cases, while working with Engineering to drive standards across financial and corporate domains, including MDM, lineage, metadata, and data quality frameworks.
• Lead the evaluation and adoption of data governance tools, MDM platforms, and data cataloging solutions that support a federated, scalable data ecosystem in partnership with Productivity Engineering & CFO Technology teams.
• Partner with the Director of Finance Tech & Systems Strategy to ensure data governance needs are embedded in our systems strategy and technology roadmap.
• Partner with Data Triaging and Data Foundations teams to ensure technical data challenges and root causes are addressed, prioritized, and delivered in alignment with governance priorities.
• Collaborate with Finance BPOs, Engineering, Functional Data Stewards, and Analytics teams to align on domain ownership, data stewardship, and governance policies.
• Develop models and frameworks for managing hierarchies, dimensions, and reference data used in enterprise reporting, planning, and analytics.
• Partners with reporting and analytics teams to ensure governed data flows seamlessly into reporting infrastructure (note: provides architectural governance standards but does not own BI/reporting layer directly.)
• Serve as the primary liaison between business teams and engineering partners on governance-related design decisions.
• Champion best practices for data quality, access control, and lifecycle management within the finance ecosystem.
• Support initiatives that enable AI, automation, and self-service analytics by ensuring data is reliable, accessible, and well-governed.
• Support audit readiness, compliance, and internal control requirements through well-defined ownership, data lineage, and access standards.

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, Engineering, Finance, or a related field, or equivalent experience. 
• 8+ years of experience in data governance, financial data management, data architecture, or enterprise systems roles with technical depth, including governance platforms and tools.
• 5+ years of experience designing and implementing Master Data Management (MDM), metadata management, and data governance frameworks.
• 5+ years of experience working with finance or corporate data domains, governance platforms and tools, and how they interact with enterprise systems (e.g., ERP, planning, procurement, HR, reporting).
• 5+ years of experience translating business strategy and process needs into scalable technical requirements and system designs, with a track record of cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder influence across Finance, Engineering, and Operations. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, Engineering, Finance, or a related field.
• Experience working within a Finance, Enterprise Data, or Corporate Systems team in a large or high-growth organization.
• Understanding of how well-governed data enables AI, automation, and digital workflows in finance and enterprise environments.
• Experience supporting financial data compliance and controls, including SOX, audit processes, and regulatory reporting frameworks.
• Knowledge of enterprise architecture principles, data modeling, and data integration across SaaS platforms.
• Passion for simplification, clarity, and enabling teams through better data foundations and governance frameworks.

Suggested Skills: 

• Data Governance
• Systems Design and Architecture 
• Financial Master Data Management
• Cross-Functional Partnership

LinkedIn is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. The pay range for this role is $149,000 to $242,000. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific office location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor.    

The total compensation package for this position may also include annual performance bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans. For more information, visit https://careers.linkedin.com/benefits. 

Additional Information

Equal Opportunity Statement 

We seek candidates with a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. LinkedIn considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

LinkedIn is committed to offering an inclusive and accessible experience for all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to foster an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone has the opportunity to be successful.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, apply for a position, or participate in the interview process, connect with us at accommodations@linkedin.com and describe the specific accommodation requested for a disability-related limitation.

Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the application or hiring process that would enable you to fully participate in that process. Examples of reasonable accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Documents in alternate formats or read aloud to you
• Having interviews in an accessible location
• Being accompanied by a service dog
• Having a sign language interpreter present for the interview

A request for an accommodation will be responded to within three business days. However, non-disability related requests, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

LinkedIn will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by LinkedIn, or (c) consistent with LinkedIn's legal duty to furnish information.

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Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, LinkedIn will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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