Empower your decisions with Business Intelligence! Discover how to hire the best BI developers, transforming raw data into strategic business insights.
Today, it's impossible to make sound business decisions without having hard data to support them. Thanks to the enormous amount of data that companies generate through digital means, there is an abundance of information available to help strategists and leaders determine the best course of action. But knowing how to use this data effectively isn't always the easiest task.
That's where business intelligence (BI) comes in. The BI team consists of roles such as data analysts and solution architects, along with BI developers, who work together to translate complex information into usable and deployable solutions for businesses.
The BI developer, in particular, plays a critical role in translating data and helping companies collect, visualize and understand the information they have to make more informed decisions and continually refine their processes.
What does a BI developer do?
The BI developer plays several roles, but at its core, the role is to make data and insights more digestible. These professionals develop and use technologies to present data through reports, graphs, maps, infographics, dashboards and other visualizations, helping their colleagues understand the material in an accessible way. They are often responsible for building platforms to present these discoveries and generating materials from them.
BI developers also examine companies' current processes and systems and devise ways to improve them. They collaborate with the rest of the BI team and other colleagues to solve various problems.
What should you look for in a BI developer?
The role and responsibilities of a BI developer can vary significantly based on the needs of a specific organization. Still, you should always look for someone with extensive experience in software development and data analysis, as well as knowledge of building and using databases. They should have used BI tools in the past as well as created BI products.
Specific tools and programming languages your BI developer should be equipped with will likely depend on the types of projects you expect them to undertake. Tailor your requirements to your organization's stacks.
Interview Questions
How does the developer fit into the BI team?
Every member of the BI team plays a key role in transforming data into actionable insights and information. Developers can perform different types of roles depending on the organization's needs, but they often play a key role in creating new technologies for the team to use, such as reporting and visualization tools, and scaling and optimizing existing ones. As the technical mind of the team, a BI developer can also advise management on what tools are needed to improve their data collection and analysis methods.
What BI tools do you use?
There are several excellent BI tools on the market. Some of the highlights include:
Datapine
SAP Business Objects
Dome
Microstrategy
Frame
Hyperion Oracle
Microsoft PowerBI
SAS Business Intelligence
Explain OLAP
An acronym for online analytical processing, OLAP streamlines the data collection process. It is the basis of many critical BI details and processes. Technology allows you to collect insights and consider data from different perspectives. Using it, you can make better and faster decisions. Often a physical cube is used to represent technology.
Describe the components of BI architecture
There are several components that make up the BI architecture and overall system. Some of the main ones are:
Data warehouse
ETL
OLAP
Data Sources
Enterprise information management
Data modeling
What is a dashboard in the context of BI?
A dashboard is a collection of your visualizations that displays important information at a glance. You can rearrange and adjust the layout to prioritize certain elements that take precedence over others. Data typically updates instantly, so when you log in, you'll see up-to-date information in a single view.
Job description
We are looking for an experienced BI developer to create data analysis tools and platforms and translate requirements into technical specifications. You must have experience in business analysis and software development. The successful candidate will help us improve our overall business intelligence (BI) strategy and systems.
Responsibilities
- Build new tools, platforms, and existing BI solutions and update them
- Effectively translate requirements and needs into technology
- Create data storage and analysis tools
- Develop tools to create data visualizations
- Perform audits of existing data and BI software
- Collaborate with other BI and development team members
- Communicate with stakeholders
- Update documentation
- Develop queries
- Create BI reports and reporting tools
- Catalog and update an inventory
- Unit test and debug all systems
- Establish and refine processes as needed
Skills and qualifications
- At least 4 years of experience working as a business intelligence developer
- Analytics, communication, teamwork, presentation,
- Strong attention to detail
- Experience using BI, analytics and reporting tools
- Knowledge of SQL
- Knowledge of data warehouse design
- Experience in data mining and extraction
- Knowledge of ETL tools
- Experience in denormalization
- Experience programming with Java, JavaScript, C#, Python and C++
- Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field