Lead, Data Quality

Job Summary Porter Airlines is modernizing its core Flight Operations systems as part of a multi-year transformation to enhance operational, crew, and airport management capabilities. This program will deliver new technology platforms, modern processes, and improved operational performance across the enterprise. As the Lead, Data Quality & Conversion, you will own the end-to-end data migration and integration process. You will drive the design and execution of extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL), lead data quality and validation activities, and ensure compliance with regulatory and operational requirements. While your primary focus will be enabling a successful transition to the new operational systems, you will also play a key role in supporting Porter’s enterprise data program. The data generated by the new platforms must be structured and integrated into the evolving data lakehouse environment to enable future analytics, reporting, and insights. Your work will help ensure that operational and data strategies remain connected and that data assets are ready for enterprise consumption. This role is both strategic and hands-on, requiring deep experience in complex data transformation programs and strong leadership capabilities. Duties & Responsibilities Develop and own the end-to-end data migration strategy for the Ops Core Program, covering legacy data assessment, mapping, cleansing, enrichment, and reconciliation. Design and oversee data extraction pipelines from legacy systems, ensuring security, completeness, and performance. Lead the development of transformation logic, field mappings, and conversion scripts to align legacy data with new platform schemas. Establish a clear data hierarchy and classification structure aligned with industry best practices, enabling consistent organization, management, and consumption of operational data. Drive the use of automation techniques and tools to accelerate data conversion, transformation, and validation, ensuring repeatability, scalability, and high data quality. Ensure operational data structures produced by the new systems are integrated into Porter’s enterprise data lakehouse in alignment with the organization’s data architecture and analytics strategy. Implement AI-enabled validation and reconciliation techniques to improve accuracy and reduce manual effort. Establish data governance processes, including lineage, auditability, privacy compliance, and retention strategies. Manage incremental test loads, mock conversions, and final cutover execution, including rollback planning. Provide leadership and guidance to data analysts, developers, and vendor teams. Monitor and report on migration progress, quality metrics, issues, and readiness to program leadership. Collaborate with internal IT, data architecture, and business stakeholders to align data requirements and ensure operational and data strategy objectives are met. Role will be primiarily on-site , may need to work outside of regular office hours and may be required to support business needs, ensure continuity of operations and project success Actively participate in Porter’s Safety Management System (SMS), including reporting hazards and incidents encountered in daily operations; understand, comply with, and promote the Company Safety Policy. Behavioural Competencies Concern for Safety: Identifying hazardous or potentially hazardous situations and taking appropriate action to maintain a safe environment for self and others. Teamwork: Working collaboratively with others to achieve organizational goals. Passenger/Customer Service: Providing service excellence to internal and/or external customers (passengers). Initiative: Dealing with situations and issues proactively and persistently, seizing opportunities that arise. Results Focus: Focusing efforts on achieving high quality results consistent with the organization’s standards. Fostering Communication: Listening and communicating openly, honestly, and respectfully with different audiences, promoting dialogue and building consensus. Qualifications Degree or diploma in Computer Science, Data Management, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience. 8+ years of experience leading data migration and transformation activities in large enterprise programs, with a focus on operational systems implementations in aviation, transportation, or similar regulated industries. Direct experience planning and executing data migrations for flight operations, crew scheduling, or airport management platforms, including data extraction, cleansing, enrichment, transformation, and validation. Proven ability to design and implement ETL workflows supporting large volumes of operational and scheduling data. Demonstrated experience applying automation frameworks and tools to improve consistency and efficiency of data conversion and validation processes. Experience establishing data hierarchies, taxonomies, and classification models tailored to operational data domains. Familiarity with AI-driven validation or anomaly detection techniques used in complex data migration programs. Strong knowledge of data governance practices, privacy regulations (e.g., PIPEDA, GDPR), and compliance standards applicable to operational data. Proficiency with modern ETL and data integration tools, scripting languages (e.g., SQL, Python), and experience working with cloud or hybrid data platforms. Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.