A Business Intelligence (BI) Developer plays a crucial role in transforming raw data into meaningful insights that drive informed decision-making within an organization. This position combines technical proficiency in data analysis, programming, and database management with a strong understanding of business operations.
BI Developers are responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining BI solutions that support strategic initiatives and improve operational efficiency. In this job description template, you will find an overview of the essential responsibilities and qualifications expected from a BI Developer.
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BI Developers are responsible for a variety of tasks that bridge the gap between business needs and data solution capabilities.
- •Designing, developing, and deploying BI solutions, including dashboards, reports, and predictive models.
- •Collaborating with stakeholders to gather requirements and translate them into actionable BI solutions.
- •Ensuring data integrity and accuracy by establishing robust ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes.
- •Conducting data analysis and identifying trends that offer insights to inform business strategies.
- •Monitoring system performance and troubleshooting BI-related issues.
- •Developing and maintaining documentation for BI processes, including data sources and methodologies.
To succeed in the role of a BI Developer, candidates should possess a blend of technical and analytical skills.
- •Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Data Analytics, or related field.
- •Proficiency in BI tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or QlikView.
- •Experience with SQL, R, Python, or similar languages for data analysis.
- •Familiarity with data warehousing concepts and architectures.
- •Strong analytical skills and attention to detail.
- •Excellent verbal and written communication skills for interacting with stakeholders.
Successful BI Developers usually exhibit a range of technical and soft skills, including:
- •Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities.
- •Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
- •Knowledge of data visualization best practices and techniques.
- •Familiarity with APIs and data integration tools.
- •Understanding of business processes and metrics relevant to the organization.
The career path for a BI Developer can lead to various advanced roles, including Senior BI Developer, BI Architect, or Data Scientist. Continuous learning and the pursuit of relevant certifications can enhance career prospects and enable progression within the field.
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Key Responsibilities
Below are 7 prioritized responsibilities for a BI Developer, with examples of daily, weekly, and strategic work and why each task matters.
1.
- •Build and update 10–20 Power BI or Tableau reports per quarter that track KPIs such as revenue, churn, and campaign ROI.
- •Ensure visualizations load under 3 seconds and follow company data standards so decision-makers can act quickly.
2.
- •Create star/snowflake schemas in the data warehouse; reduce query time by 30% through indexing and partitioning.
- •Document relationships and measures so analysts and engineers reuse consistent metrics.
3.
- •Write and maintain ETL jobs in SQL, Python, or tools like Fivetran/Airflow to move 5–50GB/day reliably.
- •Monitor jobs, fix failures within 4 business hours, and maintain data freshness guarantees (e.g., hourly or nightly).
4.
- •Run weekly 30–60 minute syncs with product, finance, or marketing to gather requirements and validate metrics.
- •Translate business questions into data requirements, reducing ambiguous requests by ~40%.
5.
- •Implement automated tests and alerts for key tables; track data errors and reduce incidents by measurable percentages.
- •Enforce naming conventions and access controls to meet compliance needs.
6.
- •Analyze slow queries, add materialized views, or redesign models to support 2x user growth.
- •Plan capacity for peak reporting periods (quarterly close, Black Friday).
7.
- •Contribute to quarterly BI roadmap: propose new KPIs, tool upgrades, or automation saving 10+ hours/week for analysts.
- •Train junior analysts through code reviews and monthly workshops.
Actionable takeaway: prioritize measurable outputs (load time, data freshness, error rates) and track improvements every sprint.
Required Qualifications and Skills
Technical skills
- •SQL (must): Write complex joins, window functions, and CTEs to produce aggregated tables; expect to handle 1M+ row queries efficiently.
- •BI tools (must): 2+ years building dashboards in Power BI or Tableau; know DAX or calculated fields and report performance tuning.
- •Data warehousing & ETL (must): Experience with Redshift, Snowflake, or BigQuery and with ETL tools (Airflow, dbt, Talend). Use these daily to load and transform 10s GBs.
- •Scripting (nice-to-have): Python or R for data prep, automation, and basic ML feature generation.
Soft skills
- •Communication (must): Explain metrics to nontechnical stakeholders in <5 minutes and produce clear documentation.
- •Problem solving (must): Break ambiguous requests into testable hypotheses and measurable deliverables.
- •Time management (must): Prioritize urgent dashboard fixes vs. strategic work; deliver weekly milestones.
Education & certifications
- •Education (must): Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Statistics, Analytics, or equivalent experience (3+ years).
- •Certifications (nice-to-have): Microsoft Certified: Data Analyst Associate or Tableau Desktop Specialist; these show tool-specific proficiency.
Experience requirements
- •Practical experience (must): 3+ years in BI or analytics roles with a portfolio of 5+ dashboards and at least one end-to-end ETL project.
- •Domain knowledge (nice-to-have): Experience in finance, e-commerce, or healthcare; this helps translate business needs into metrics quickly.
Actionable takeaway: hire for strong SQL and BI-tool experience first, then add scripting and domain expertise to accelerate impact within 3 months.