[Hiring] Data and Evaluation Manager @CollegeSpring

Role Description

The Data Manager ensures CollegeSpring has clean, trustworthy, accessible data that teams across the organization can use to understand our programs, make decisions, demonstrate impact, and improve. This highly independent role owns and strengthens established data systems and processes, turns messy data into useful information, and translates complex data into clear, intuitive visualizations, dashboards, and reports that help people understand what the data is telling us and act on it. The Data Manager supports the program team, leadership, funders, Board members, and program partners with clear, actionable analysis and reporting.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree
• 3+ years of relevant experience in data management, analytics, evaluation, or a related field.
• Advanced Excel skills, including complex formulas, pivot tables, data validation, and cleaning and analyzing large datasets.
• Experience wrangling large, messy, or inconsistent datasets into clean, reliable, analysis-ready form.
• Experience with database design, data cleaning, quality assurance, and data-governance practices.
• Proficiency in Tableau and Looker Studio for building and maintaining reports and dashboards.
• Experience designing clear, effective data visualizations for technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience taking over and improving existing data systems and processes rather than only building new systems.
• Experience designing and analyzing surveys and other approaches to quantitative and qualitative data collection.
• Experience analyzing program or organizational outcomes using appropriate quantitative methods and understanding the strengths and limitations of different analytical approaches.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills and comfort working with large quantities of data.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical findings and facilitate meaningful discussions about data with non-technical audiences.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and operate effectively in an environment with ambiguity and change.

Requirements

• Own the integrity, governance, and usability of CollegeSpring’s organizational data, including student and program data, outcomes, and other organizational reporting data.
• Take ownership of existing data systems and processes and continuously improve them, addressing inefficiencies, inconsistencies, gaps, and usability issues.
• Wrangle large, sometimes messy datasets into clean, reliable, analysis-ready data.
• Establish and maintain data governance practices, including data definitions, naming conventions, validation checks, access controls, documentation, and quality assurance processes.
• Proactively investigate and resolve data anomalies, discrepancies, and broken processes before they affect internal or external reporting.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures for data collection, entry, quality assurance, and reporting workflows.
• Manage core metrics and longitudinal data to ensure historical tracking is accurate, consistent, and up to date.
• Partner with the Director of Operations and Insights on CollegeSpring’s underlying data systems, integrations, and technical infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with Operations and Legal on district-, school-, and partner-level data-sharing agreements and collection processes to ensure compliance with applicable local, state, and federal requirements.
• Manage relationships with external data and software vendors as needed.
• Conduct ongoing analysis of student outcomes, program performance, implementation, and other key organizational metrics.
• Translate ambiguous questions into clear analytical approaches, identify the appropriate data and methods, conduct the analysis, and communicate findings and limitations.
• Support evaluation of CollegeSpring’s programs, pilots, and new initiatives by helping establish appropriate measures, data-collection approaches, and methods for assessing results.
• Design and analyze surveys and other quantitative and qualitative data collection efforts, including interviews, focus groups, and observations, as needed.
• Apply appropriate quantitative methods to understand program outcomes and trends, including understanding the appropriate use and limitations of statistical methods.
• Partner with program and organizational leaders to identify meaningful patterns, trends, risks, and opportunities in the data and translate findings into actionable insights.
• Support organizational learning by helping teams use data to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and where further investigation is needed.
• Build and maintain reports and dashboards in Tableau and Looker Studio for leadership, program staff, funders, Board members, and external partners.
• Bring a strong point of view about data clarity and usability, designing reports and dashboards that are accurate, intuitive, and easy to act on.
• Oversee partner-level reporting processes and develop tools and templates that enable staff to consistently analyze and communicate results.
• Prepare reports and presentations using quantitative and qualitative data that make complex topics and findings understandable to technical and non-technical audiences.
• Provide analysis and reporting that supports funder, grant, Board, and other external reporting needs.
• Partner with program and development staff to understand what data they need, why they need it, and how to make reporting more useful.
• Serve as CollegeSpring’s primary internal resource for data management, analysis, reporting, and visualization.
• Partner across the organization to establish annual data priorities and ensure data systems and reporting support organizational needs.
• Train and support colleagues who interact with data systems and reporting tools day-to-day.
• Develop documentation, tools, and practices that make data understandable and accessible to others rather than dependent on one person’s institutional knowledge.
• Facilitate data reviews that help teams move from information to decisions and action.
• Promote strong organizational practices around data quality, interpretation, reflection, and evidence-based decision-making.

Benefits

• Generous benefits package including health, dental, vision, life, and disability insurances.
• Flexible spending accounts.
• 403(b) retirement plan with employer match.
• 32 paid days of office closures.
• 15 days PTO in your first year.
• 5 sick days.
• 2 paid days to volunteer in your community.
• Inclusive paid family leave.
• Annual work from home reimbursement.