Data Analytics Specialist

Job Description Summary Reporting to the Associate Director of Data Analytics and Insights on the Data Engineering and Operations team, the Data Analytics Specialist supports Bentley University’s enterprise data and analytics ecosystem by translating business needs into well-defined data requirements, building and maintaining trusted reporting and dashboard solutions, and partnering with data engineering and business teams to deliver scalable data products. The role combines business analysis, BI development, data modeling, testing, and hands-on engineering support across the analytics delivery lifecycle. The position may apply statistical, predictive, or machine learning techniques when they are appropriate to the business need, while maintaining a primary focus on reliable data, actionable analysis, and decision-ready reporting. Essential Duties & Responsibilities: Business Analysis & Data Requirements  Collaborate with business partners, cross-functional teams, and IT units to gather, clarify, and document detailed business, data, and reporting requirements.  Translate business needs into technical specifications, user stories, acceptance criteria, data mappings, semantic model requirements, and analytics deliverables.  Lead or support stakeholder interviews, discovery sessions, process mapping, workflow analysis, and use-case development.  Conduct data discovery and profiling to understand source systems, data structures, data quality, lineage, and end-to-end data movement.  Research and work with the data governance manager to resolve complex questions related to enterprise reporting, data definitions, business rules, and data usage across systems.  Partner with data governance stakeholders to define shared terminology, document data definitions, and promote consistent and responsible data use.    Reporting, Dashboards & BI Development  Analyze, define, design, build, test, deploy, and maintain reports and interactive dashboards across BI platforms, including Power BI and SQL-based outputs.  Develop and maintain semantic models, relationships, calculations, queries, and measures using Power BI, DAX, Power Query (M), and SQL.  Create intuitive data visualizations that communicate insights clearly to technical and non-technical audiences and support data-informed decision-making.  Perform exploratory and statistical analysis to identify trends, patterns, relationships, and actionable insights.  Apply predictive analytics, machine learning, or other advanced analytical methods selectively when they add clear value; evaluate results and communicate limitations appropriately.  Provide dashboard prototyping, iterative refinement, performance optimization, release support, and ongoing maintenance across the full BI development lifecycle.  Provide training, documentation, and ongoing support to report consumers and business users.  Identify opportunities for business process optimization, reporting consolidation,…