Business Intelligence Developer and Data Engineer: why do you need both in your team?
The IT and data analysis world keeps changing and expanding. So are the skills of people working in it. In the last few years, we’ve seen a significant development in the data analysis job market: many new roles emerged to respond to the ever-changing clients’ requirements and the always growing amount of data to process and analyse.
Good examples of such relatively new jobs are Business Intelligence Developers and Data Engineers. Are they the same people and if not, do you really need both in your team? Do read on to find answers to those questions.
Who is a Business Intelligence Developer?
Business Intelligence is a term that covers technologies, applications and practices of collection, analysis, and presentation of business information. Its main goal is to provide businesses with valuable information which will facilitate their decision-making processes and improve their day-to-day operation.
Business Intelligence Developers make the data understandable for people who run organisations – they create and run reports containing data they found and make the highly technical language available to those who are not as technically skilled.
They are data experts who recognise the reporting needs and gather requirements to develop Business Intelligence, which transform data into useful, detailed insights that improve decision-making processes for businesses. They work across all areas of business and are often senior software developers with strong business acumen, skilled at bridging gaps in processes and systems.
Simply put, they know exactly what the right reports should look like and what they should bring. This is the reason why the best Business Intelligence Developers are often very experienced people with a great understanding of the business and its needs.
They are the people who have the vision and know-how to make it come true. They must be highly technical with a good understanding of coding, testing, designing, and implementing new tools as well as of working with different types of databases.
But they do not perform data analysis as such, and they do not create the infrastructure on their own. They need Data Engineers to make their vision come true.
Read more about Business Intelligence:
- Business Intelligence: unlock the potential of your data and put it to use
- Know the difference between a BI Dev and a BI Specialist before you start building your team
- Business Intelligence and Data Science – a managerial perspective
- The future of Business Intelligence (BI): trends and predictions
Who is a Data Engineer?
Data engineering focuses on practical applications of data collection and analysis. Data analysis requires mechanisms for collecting and validating information, and creating those mechanisms is the main task of data engineering.
Data Engineers’ role is very different from Business Intelligence Developers’, but they work closely together.
They design and build software that incorporates information and data from different sources. They are also responsible for creating queries, making sure all the infrastructure works smoothly. In short, their main aim is to optimise the performance of the entire data ecosystem.
Data Engineers are highly skilled and technical people who create software solutions around data, usually using Java, Scala, or Python. They should possess extensive knowledge of creating data products and data pipelines meaning the way data is extracted, processed, and used to bring a certain value.
BI Developer vs Data Engineer: the core responsibilities of each position
To fully understand the roles of Business Intelligence Developers and Data Engineers, it’s worth looking at the core responsibilities of both positions.
Business Intelligence Developer’s main tasks include:
data visualisation and reporting, using tools like Tableau, Power BI, or QlikView,
data analysis, with the aim to identify trends, patterns, and insights,
Data Reconciliation, which involve extracting data from various sources, transforming it into a usable format, and loading it into a data warehouse or reporting database,
performance tuning,
user training and support.
A Data Engineer’s main job involve:
data pipeline development using tools like Apache Kafka, Apache Spark,
data warehousing by designing and optimising database schemas, ensuring data quality and integrity, and handling data storage and retrieval (e.g. Snowflake cloud data warehouse),
data integration to provide a unified and consistent view of data for analytics and reporting,
performance optimisation,
data security to protect sensitive information and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations,
data architecture, ensuring it aligns with business needs,
data documentation.
Why do you need both Business Intelligence Developer and Data Engineer in your team?
In today’s world which produces tons of data daily, every business that is keen to develop and understand their clients and industry needs data analysis and people who are skilled at doing it. Two of such people are Business Intelligence Developer and Data Engineer.
The key differences between those two roles are in their responsibilities. BI Developers focus on creating interactive reports and visualisations to enable data-driven decisions, while Data Engineers focus on infrastructure and data architecture that underpin data analytics and reporting. Although some aspects of their jobs may seem similar, their competences don’t overlap.
Synergy in action: how BI Developers and Data Engineers collaborate for better outcomes
To take proper care of data analysis in your company, you need to have an experienced Business Intelligence Developer and a skilled Data Engineer on board.
They should collaborate closely, communicate effectively, and work in synergy. Only when those conditions are met, a business can truly benefit from a powerful data science.
Find skilled Business Intelligence Developers and Data Engineers in no time: outsourcing your data analysis
Given the global gap in IT talent pool and an increased need of skilled IT professionals it is very challenging to find experienced and skilled Business Intelligence Developer and Data Engineer that are still looking for a job.
If you are after a professional team to deal with your data science, the best solution is to outsource the data analytics service to an experienced and trusted partner, who will deliver the results you are keen to get, giving you all their expertise and the best team.
At Future Processing, we work with the most experienced Business Intelligence Developers and Data Engineers, ready to help you make your business thrive. Check what we can do for your company!
