Data Protection & Microsoft Purview Engineer

We are seeking an experienced Data Protection & Microsoft Purview Engineer (Contractor) to provide immediate hands-on support. This contractor will lead short-term stabilization and improvement of our Microsoft Purview data protection environment, refine our sensitive information types and labeling strategies, and help make sense of existing alerts, noise, and policy effectiveness. Additionally, this role will support evaluation and proof of concept testing for alternative or complementary data governance and protection platforms. This is a high-impact, execution-focused role designed to quickly advance data governance maturity during a critical transition period.

Key Responsibilities
Microsoft Purview Assessment & Optimization:
- Perform a full assessment of the current Microsoft Purview configuration.
- Evaluate and refine sensitive information types (SITs).
- Review and optimize labeling policies, auto-labeling rules, and inheritance.
- Tune DLP rules to reduce false positives and improve detection.
- Analyze the alert volume and provide recommendations for improvement.

Operational Support & Incident Review:
- Support interpretation of Purview alerts and escalations.
- Assist investigations of sensitive data mishandling incidents.

Tool Evaluation & Proof-of-Concept Testing:
- Lead comparison and validation of additional data governance tools.
- Conduct hands-on testing and results analysis.

Documentation & Knowledge Transfer:
- Deliver documentation of current configuration and recommendations.
- Provide Training, knowledge transfer and coaching for internal teams.
Required Qualifications
- 5+ years experience in data protection or cloud security.
- Expertise with Microsoft Purview (Information Protection, DLP, SITs, eDiscovery, Insider Risk).
- Strong understanding of Microsoft E5 security and compliance.
- Experience evaluating or implementing data protection tools.
- Strong communication skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with labeling taxonomy redesign.
- Experience supporting compliance-driven environments.

Equal opportunity employer including disability/veterans.