BI Engineer III

Job Description:

POSITION SUMMARY: 

BI Engineers execute the end-to-end process of building business intelligence solutions that deliver information to support business decision-making for departments across the enterprise. They must consult with end users to understand usability requirements and the user’s vision for how the delivered information supports the user’s business process. In addition to delivering and maintaining the end user facing solutions, this role includes the engineering component of designing, building and maintaining suitable underlying data sources within the production data warehouse.  In performing this engineering function, the BI Engineer must often work with data owners to identify appropriate data sources and work with Integration Engineers and Data Engineers to move data sources into the warehouse. The BI Engineer then employs reporting tools to construct a high quality BI solution that is vetted and confirmed with the end user.

The BI Engineer III is a senior technical role that requires expert proficiency and ability to guide and mentor other team members to develop complex production solutions to support business decision-making.  The BI Engineer III already has proven experience engineering a broad range of data sources and reporting platform solutions as well as experience working with business stakeholders to explain available business data resources and solution options.  The BI Engineer III is a recognized SQL expert on the team and guides other team members in analyzing data sources and building tables and views to support enterprise production reporting. The BI Engineer III has expert knowledge of current tools in place at Les Schwab as well as awareness of other tool options and features available in the marketplace.  The BI Engineer III spends a small amount of their time on production support and guiding others in support processes and the remainder of their time delivering complex solutions and developing administration and quality improvement strategies. 

This role is within the Information and Digital Services organization at Les Schwab headquarters in Bend, OR.

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES/FUNCTIONS:

25% - Operational Support

• Lead and guide processes to provide 2nd tier support to employees who report incidents on BI solutions.

• Lead and guide the design of alerting mechanisms as needed to ensure the availability and performance of developed reports and dashboards.

• Lead and guide the solution of technical problems and identification of root-causes for incidents/problems identified in BI solutions.

• Lead and guide analysis to identify opportunities for improvements to data sources and BI solutions and drive changes to sources and their maintenance processes.

• Drive change management processes to deploy patches / fixes to BI solutions.

• Create, maintain and manage operational procedures and related documentation

25% - BI Data Structure and Solution Design

• Collaborate with business systems analysts, data analysts, business stakeholders, and analytics practitioners to understand use cases and guide the development of data source and reporting solution requirements.

• Collaborate with data stewards and data source managers to understand data definitions and business rules relevant to designing a data source and pipeline for the report or data service solution.

• Lead business analysis activities to gather visualization and dashboard format and functional requirements.

• Lead and guide team members to translate functional requirements into detailed designs of data structures from inception through production support and write technical specifications.

• Present prototypes and mock-ups of solutions to end users and manage the process of delivering versus maintaining a backlog of design elements.

• Drive efficient processes for managing workflow tickets.

• Mentor other team members in best practices for BI Data Structure and Solution Design.

20% - BI Data Structure and Solution Development

• Catalog data sources for solutions and manage implementation and documentation of new data sources.

• Design and develop metadata and KPIs for BI Solutions.

• Design and develop physical database tables, views, and flat files to support research projects,and reporting solutions.

• Solve technical problems in developing data models, data structures and ETL solutions.

• Create and maintain data dictionaries, data model diagrams, data mapping documents, data security and quality requirements and related data platform documentation.

• Develop best practice reporting solutions that maximize functionality available within reporting tools to deliver information of the highest value to stakeholders to support their business needs.

• Collaborate in an agile team environment to deliver timely BI solutions within a dynamic learning organization.

• Mentor other team members in best practices for BI Data Structure and Solution Development.

20% - Data Platform Quality and Governance

• Administer end user reporting platforms such as Tableau, Thoughtspot, etc. and develop processes for managing system access, configuration settings etc.

• Identify value-add enhancements to existing solutions.

• Manage a quality assurance framework to ensure the delivery of high quality data sources and BI Solutions to end users.

• Collaborate with Digital Services colleagues to use best practices within a culture of agile development and service excellence.

• Implement development best practices, version control and deployment strategies to ensure product quality, agility and recoverability.

• Implement reporting system access roles and permissions to ensure “least privileged” access to enterprise data and reduce the enterprise risk of data exposure.

• Maintain data work flows and query performance in the context of evolving data sources.

• Mentor other team members in best practices for maintaining data platform and solution quality and security.

10% - Stakeholder Relationship and Vendor Management

• Support Data Owners to establish and enforce guidelines for data collection, integration and maintenance.

• Support Data Product Management in assessing and maintaining report and data services product solution value to Les Schwab.

• Collaborate with Information and Digital Services colleagues to identify process improvement opportunities and utilize resources efficiently across portfolios.

• Collect administration data and analyze reporting and data services platform usage with the aim of improving business value and security.

• Contribute to discussions about process and technology enhancements and strategy discussions.

MINIMUM EDUCATION & SKILLS REQUIRED:

Educational/Experience Requirements: 

• Bachelor’s degree (BS or BA) in a STEM related discipline with a major in Computer Science/Information Management/Database Development and Analysis or equivalent disciplines or equivalent experience with appropriate time-in-role.

• 6+ years of experience working with relational databases, ETL/ELT, reporting/analytic tools and scripting.

• 6+ years of experience with at least one data visualization tool, such as Tableau or ThoughtSpot.

• 4+ years of experience with AWS services including S3, Data-pipeline and cloud based data warehouses.

• Experience with applied statistics, analytics and data science is a plus. 

Required Technical Skills/Knowledge: 

• Advanced level Structured Query Language (SQL) code development.

• Proficiency in SQL performance tuning.

• Advanced Data Analysis techniques for testing and troubleshooting.

• Advanced knowledge of ETL processes.

• Proficiency in guiding others to produce high quality written documentation such as data dictionaries, data catalogs, and functional and technical requirements specifications.

• Proficiency guiding and mentoring others in the and functions of reporting tools.

• Proficiency guiding and mentoring others to select best practice data visualization methods and options.

• Proficiency guiding and mentoring others in quality assurance and change management techniques. 

• Expertise developing efficient team processes for delivery collaboration and configuring software such as Service Now, Jira, or similar.

• Proficiency guiding and mentoring others to translate stakeholder requests into functional and technical requirements and guiding stakeholders to choose appropriate options for the design of their solution.

General Knowledge and Abilities: 

• Innovation Skills: Knowledge of when and how to challenge the status quo and ability to identify data-driven and machine learning opportunities. Ability to discover new data sources and attributes and catalog data. Familiarity with inventive and prototyping processes.

• Analytical Skills: Strong analytical and decision making skills.  Understanding of bias and knowledge of methods for cross-validation.

• Communication: Ability to communicate technical, non-technical, and complex concepts clearly and professionally (both verbally and in writing) while ensuring that the quality and content of the message are relevant to the circumstances and understandable to wide audiences; the ability to draft, proofread, and send written communications effectively; the ability and willingness to carefully listen to others by asking appropriate questions, avoiding interruptions, and the leadership to collaborate internally, cross-functionally, and across management levels in formal and informal settings to understand cross IT and business constraints.

• Flexibility: Willingness to work in an ever-changing environment with the ability to positively adapt to organizational, process, and technology changes.

• Initiative: Ability to architect technical solutions without close supervision and to execute work assignments of high complexity and diversity.

• Leadership: Ability to train, coach, and motivate staff, delegate and make work assignments; exercise independent judgment in assignment and direction of employees; make well thought-out decisions after evaluating and weighing different information and options; and act as a point person for emergent and day-to day issues.

• Organization: Ability to manage work assignments through prioritization, paying attention to detail, and optimal time management; ability to handle interruptions with ease and concentrate on several areas of work at one time.

• Service Excellence: Lead by example, exhibiting the willingness to be stakeholder-focused by anticipating and understanding stakeholders' needs; collaborate with them to reach a suitable solution; then consistently meet and deliver on those expectations.

• Teamwork: Ability to establish and maintain cooperative working relationships with business users and team members; must work effectively independently, as a member of a team, and as a team leader.

Physical Requirements: Primarily desk position; regularly required to sit, occasionally required to stand and walk. Requires frequent and repetitive use of hands and fingers to operate a computer, mouse, keyboard, and office related equipment and the ability to reach with hands and arms. Position requires lifting no more than 10 pounds on a regular basis. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close visual acuity and the ability to adjust focus. Requires the ability to communicate verbally and exchange information over the phone and in person.

Work Environment: Office, non-manual work; the worker is not substantially exposed to adverse environmental conditions. Working on-call is required for this position, including but not limited to: evenings, weekends, and holidays.

BENEFITS:

• Annual profit-sharing bonus

• Medical, dental, vision for employees

• Company-funded retirement plan - no cost to employee

• Paid holidays

• Paid time off

• Flex remote arrangements (work 1-2 days/week from home)

• Tuition Assistance

• Employee discount

This job description is not all inclusive and is subject to change. Additional duties and tasks may be assigned, as necessary. Employment remains “AT WILL” at all times.