What to ask in the interview to find out if the job is serious

Jobs with a data governance title have grown faster than real governance programs. Some companies have structure, sponsorship, and metrics; others just renamed the master data team.

Three questions separate the two, and all of them are polite enough for a first conversation.

1. What quality metric do you track today, and what was its last change?

This is the most revealing question. If there is a program, there is a number and there is a trend, and the interviewer can tell you which one, even without remembering the exact value.

The answer "we're just starting to structure that" is legitimate, and the job can be a good one: you join to build. What matters is what comes next. Ask who the sponsor is and what the timeline is. Without a named sponsor, you will spend your first year asking for permission.

Bad answer: talking about a tool instead of a metric. Having a platform under contract is not the same as having governance.

2. Who decides when two areas disagree on the rule for the same data?

Governance is, at its core, a decision mechanism. If no one arbitrates, the technical work can't sustain the result: you map, you propose, and nothing changes.

A good answer names a role or a forum: domain owner, a committee with real authority. A worrying answer: "we talk it through and reach a consensus." Consensus works until the first conflict with a tight deadline.

3. What happened the last time a non-standard master record had to go in urgently?

This question exposes the culture, not the process. Every company has that episode.

The ideal answer describes a logged exception, with approval and a later review. The answer that should set off the alarm is "we release it and fix it later," said casually: it means the standard has no one defending it, and your work will be measured by release speed.

Two signals that need no question

Who the job reports to. Governance inside IT, reporting to a systems coordinator, usually has a technical scope and little authority over process. Tied to a business area or an executive-level department, it tends to have more.

How the job describes the daily routine. If the list of responsibilities has only execution verbs (create, fix, update), the role is operations with a new name. Define, measure, and arbitrate need to appear.

And if the job is immature

It can be well worth it, if there is sponsorship and you want to build. Just go in with that made explicit, with the first metric agreed, and with a deadline to show results. What wears a career down is joining while expecting a structure that doesn't exist.