Data Systems + Analytics Manager

WHAT WE DO In the United States, too few students can access effective, high-performing public schools. At City Fund, we work to increase educational opportunities for students and families by partnering with city and state leaders to create innovative public school systems. We believe that public schools do best when educators have the power to make decisions that meet the diverse needs of their students, families are provided the information and access to choose the best schools for their children, and schools are held accountable for helping all students succeed. City Fund provides financial support and expertise to local leaders seeking to improve educational opportunities in their cities. We support 24 cities across the country and hope to eventually reach most American cities. We focus on supporting: High quality, innovative K-12 schools with nonprofit governing structures and diverse leadership City leaders , including civic leaders and nonprofits that are working to build innovative public education systems and reflect the students and families they serve Advocacy organizations that build the political power of families to shape education in ways that work for them ABOUT THE ROLE We're looking for a hands-on data systems & analytics manager to oversee the data infrastructure that powers our learning, evaluation, and reporting. You will steward our current data ecosystem and design and implement ongoing improvements to turn a wide range of incoming public and internal datasets into accurate, well-modeled, reliable assets that both technical and non-technical colleagues can rely on. You will design and implement the transformations and semantic layer that make our BigQuery warehouse usable across teams, develop and maintain the ELT/ETL pipelines that keep it current, and establish the standards and documentation that keep it trustworthy over time. You'll also field data questions that come from across the organization and apply analytical judgment to test whether our metrics hold up. A note on scope: our data is public, school-level data across 40+ states with charter laws, plus internally generated programmatic, political, financial, and grantmaking datasets. We do not use PII or student-level data at this time. Currently, our key challenge is in integrating complex, idiosyncratic data sources and ensuring longitudinal consistency. We're hiring for SQL, data-modeling, and pipeline rigor, not streaming or big-data infrastructure. This role can be filled at the Manager or Senior Manager level. We care more about demonstrated capability than exact tenure—as a guide, manager-level candidates typically bring 4+ years of relevant experience, with the senior level reflecting deeper, independent ownership of data systems and architecture (roughly 6+ years). KEY RESPONSIBILITIES Data Infrastructure & Transformation (25%) Build and maintain the central BigQuery warehouse and the ELT/ETL pipelines that keep it current, versioned, and reliable. Build and own the version-controlled transformations and semantic layer (e.g., dbt or Dataform) that turn raw, idiosyncratic sources into consistent, analysis-ready models, including aggregations by school type and geography. Maintain the master list of schools City Fund tracks: apply inclusion rules, match records across vendor files, state IDs, and NCES IDs, and map each school to City Fund-defined locations. Data Intake, Validation & Quality (25%) Coordinate external and internal data providers (vendors, consultants, partners, grantees, staff), managing their timelines, formats, and handoffs. Validate and clean incoming data and build automated quality control checkpoints, including a staging-vs-production QC process that flags differences above set tolerances, to catch errors before they reach production. Handle state-specific rules (suppression, encodings), maintain the override/correction layer for known reporting errors, and resolve anomalies with vendors at the source. Analytics, Reporting, & Visualization (30%) Collaborate with the Strategy Team to develop custom queries and datasets for internal learning projects, organizational strategy questions, Board requests, and funder reporting and prospecting. Build and maintain the analysis-ready staging tables and SQL models across enrollment, proficiency, postsecondary, and graduation that feed reporting and dashboards, and keep the refreshes automated. Apply analytical and statistical methods to test and validate City Fund's school-quality metrics, including our demographic-adjusted measure of proficiency. Collaborate with the Strategy Team to maintain and improve existing data tools such as data dashboards, seat plans for projecting new school openings, and school quality modeling tools; support the development of new data tools as needed to enhance organizational use of data. Documentation & Governance (10%) Document data structures, processes, and metric definitions, keeping transformation and pipeline docs alongside the code so logic, tests, and lineage stay discoverable. Run an annual lock/archive process that freezes each year's key metrics and the queries behind them, so prior funder and Board figures stay reproducible. Recommend what data and queries can be shared internally vs. externally; when multiple sources exist for a measure (e.g., Fall vs. Spring enrollment), recommend the best one for a specified use case. Cross-Functional Support (10%) Serve as the point of contact for data access and troubleshooting, and help non-technical colleagues navigate systems and dashboards. Develop a process for managing and prioritizing incoming data requests. Collaborate with the Strategy Team to gather requirements and stay aligned with organizational priorities. Support ad-hoc data needs across the organization. Requirements QUALIFICATIONS Key Competencies You are a systems thinker with strong technical depth, sharp attention to detail, and the communication skills to work with both technical and non-technical colleagues. You are a problem solver who brings creative approaches to technical challenges and data limitations. You are adaptable across the data lifecycle and comfortable with evolving priorities — the role leans heavily on data ingestion and validation today, but you're equally energized by building the systems and by putting that data to good analytical use. Required Experience 4+ years in data systems management, with demonstrated, independent ownership of data systems (deeper, more autonomous experience maps to the Senior level.) Expert SQL and hands-on experience in a cloud data warehouse (BigQuery preferred), with strong data modeling and query optimization on large, longitudinal datasets. Demonstrated experience building and maintaining ELT/ETL pipelines and a version-controlled transformation/semantic layer (e.g., dbt or Dataform). Demonstrated expertise in data validation, cleaning, and QA on complex, longitudinal datasets that connect multiple, idiosyncratic sources. Proficiency in a statistical or scripting language (Python, R, or Stata) for validation, automation, and analysis, and comfort using AI tools to accelerate data work (e.g., drafting/debugging SQL, scripting, documentation). Strong documentation and data governance practices, and clear communication with vendors and non-technical users. Preferred Experience Proficiency with a BI/visualization tool outside your primary coding language (e.g., Looker Studio or Tableau). Experience reconciling data across multiple analytics providers or models (e.g., validating one vendor's outputs against another's). Comfort with geospatial data and geocoding (e.g., BigQuery GIS functions, Python/geopandas, the Census geocoder, or QGIS/ArcGIS). Experience in K-12 education or education philanthropy, including K-12 data sources (NCES, state DOE portals), common metrics, and statistical analysis (including regression analysis) applied to education. Experience curating public datasets for internal and external use and working with third-party data vendors. Benefits WHAT WE VALUE Mission-driven with passion for improving educational outcomes Takes ownership of data quality and accuracy Adaptable and comfortable working in a small, collaborative team environment Intellectually curious with a commitment to continuous learning Energized by building durable systems—and by finding and fixing the inconsistencies that threaten them WHAT YOU GET City Fund is committed to creating and maintaining a total rewards system that supports our ability to recruit and retain a diverse and talented team. As we make decisions about total rewards, we will be guided by the following values: highly competitive pay, equitable pay, clarity, and transparency. The salary range for this role is $105,000–$145,000, reflecting the Manager and Senior Manager levels. City Fund honors the diverse experiences that candidates bring to roles to which they are applying. City Fund offers a competitive total rewards package. For full-time roles, this includes 100% employer-paid health insurance, flexible PTO, 5% 401K match, 6 months of paid parental leave, and a host of other benefits.