Business Intelligence Specialist

The Business Intelligence Specialist will serve as the primary owner of our Looker-based BI environment and broader analytics reporting. This role is responsible for maintaining and developing LookML models, dashboards, and Explores, while also providing strategic guidance on data model architecture, security, governance, and conversational analytics. The ideal candidate is Looker-fluent but brings experience across other major BI platforms to inform best practices and future tool decisions.

Key Responsibilities

Looker Platform Ownership

• Provide day-to-day support and maintenance for the Looker BI environment, ensuring platform health and reliability.

• Develop and maintain LookML models, Explores, and dashboards based on business requirements and stakeholder requests.

• Execute LookML updates, user administration, and performance tuning to optimize query speed and user experience.

• Troubleshoot and resolve production issues within the Looker environment during business hours.

• Build new Looker tables/dashboard from the new BigQuery Datamarts and tables.

Strategic Advisory & Governance

• Review and recommend improvements to the backend data model architecture in the context of Looker performance and scalability.

• Conduct reviews and provide guidance on Looker security, access control, and overall governance frameworks.

• Define and maintain a metric governance framework including single source of truth definitions, approved calculation logic, and ownership workflows.

• Guide the organization on implementing or leveraging conversational analytics use cases within the Looker environment.

Analytics Planning & Architecture

• Assess existing Looker dashboards and make recommendations on what to retain, redesign, or retire.

• Help define user stories for dashboards: audience, decisions enabled, cadence, and purpose.

• Contribute to BI-tool-agnostic architecture planning to ensure portability and exit readiness.

• Ensure dashboards consume a governed semantic layer rather than embedding transformation logic directly.

Reporting & Documentation

• Produce weekly status reports summarizing work completed, hours consumed, current task status, and upcoming planned deliverables.

• Maintain updated documentation for all LookML models, dashboards, governance changes, and architectural decisions.

• Deliver advisory review documents with key findings and recommendations on data model, security, and governance structures.

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of hands-on experience with Looker, including LookML development, Explores, and dashboard design.

• Strong understanding of data modeling concepts (star schema, snowflake, denormalized models) as they apply to BI performance.

• Experience with Looker security and access control configuration (roles, model sets, user attributes).

• Proficiency in SQL, particularly for analytical queries against cloud data warehouses.

• Experience working with BigQuery, Redshift, or similar cloud-based data warehouses as Looker backends.

• Solid understanding of BI governance practices, including metric definitions, naming conventions, and version control.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with at least one additional major BI tool (Tableau, Power BI, Sigma, or Metabase) to bring cross-platform perspective.

• Familiarity with dbt or similar transformation frameworks and how they integrate with the BI layer.

• Exposure to conversational analytics or natural-language query features within BI platforms.

• Experience in franchise, retail, or multi-location business environments.

• Familiarity with Git-based workflows for LookML version control and promotion processes.

• Experience with CLV modeling concepts and how they surface in reporting.