Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-hitting data engineering and BI leadership role where you'll own the reporting pipeline from raw database architecture all the way to stakeholder dashboards. If you enjoy untangling messy data sources, optimizing legacy queries, and building bulletproof ETL pipelines without hand-holding, this gig is worth your time.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You'll spend your days knee-deep in database architecture, designing data marts, and building complex T-SQL scripts and SSIS packages that pull from disparate sources like DB2 and legacy systems. Expect to debug sluggish queries, set up automated data loads via SQL Server Agent, and wrestle with data migration and reconciliation. When you're not optimizing the backend, you'll collaborate directly with business analysts to translate vague requirements into clean, performant Tableau dashboards that executives will actually use to make decisions.
The Core Tech Stack
You need to be an absolute wizard with Tableau and complex SQL development because you'll be building enterprise-grade reports and tuning performance bottlenecks from day one. Strong T-SQL, SSIS, and SSRS experience are non-negotiable since the entire data pipeline hinges on your ability to ingest, transform, and validate data reliably. Familiarity with Talend, Git/TFVC for version control, and database modeling rounds out the toolkit you'll need to survive and thrive here.
Interview Expectations
Expect the technical interviewers to hand you a painfully slow query and ask you to optimize it on the spot while explaining execution plans, indexes, and sargable arguments. They're not just looking for the right syntax; they want to see how you troubleshoot performance bottlenecks under pressure and whether you understand the downstream reporting impacts in Tableau. You should also be ready to whiteboard a complete ETL architecture from a legacy system to a modern data mart, detailing how you handle data validation, error logging, and reconciliation failures.
Application Advice
Skip the generic summaries and make sure your resume explicitly highlights your hands-on experience with SSIS package optimization and large-scale Tableau dashboard deployments. Drop exact keywords like T-SQL, query tuning, data reconciliation, and SQL Server Agent right into your bullet points so you easily clear the initial ATS screening. Emphasize any past projects where you successfully bridged the gap between raw backend data engineering and front-end business intelligence.