Data and AI Specialist-IT Applications

American University of Sharjah; Sharjah; On-site; AED 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

The American University of Sharjah invites applications for a Data and AI Specialist to advance data-informed decision making across the university. You will design, develop, and maintain Power BI reports and data models, build data pipelines, and implement AI-driven solutions with governance and security in mind.

You will collaborate with stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable, production-ready data platforms, leverage Azure and Fabric, and contribute to RAG workflows, embeddings,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required in a relevant field; five years of analytics/BI/AI experience preferred.
• Ability to translate business requirements into governed, production-ready data solutions.
• Strong communication for technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain Power BI reports and dashboards, including data models and DAX measures.
• Build and maintain data warehouse, data platform, and pipelines with ETL/ELT and integrations with Banner/Oracle Fusion.
• Design and implement LLM-powered and agentic AI solutions, including context engineering and tool calling.
• Build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems with embeddings and vector search.
• Develop workflow automation and system integrations via REST APIs and automation.
• Deploy and monitor AI solutions with guardrails, evaluation, and cost considerations.
• Assess SaaS/AI solutions and assist procurement with requirements.
• Establish data governance, data definitions, ownership, audit trails, and least-privilege access.
• Follow SDLC, Git, and deployment pipelines from requirements to production.

Skills

Data analytics

Business intelligence

AI/ML concepts

Data governance

Project management

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Computer Engineering, MIS, or a related discipline

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI, or related discipline

Tools

Power BI

SQL

Azure

Git

Microsoft Fabric

APIs

Job description

The American University of Sharjah is seeking a Data and AI Specialist. This role centers on practical data analysis, business intelligence, and AI-driven solutions across the university. It covers designing and maintaining Power BI reports and dashboards, building and supporting AI, agentic, and automation solutions, and developing the data warehouse, data platform, pipelines, and integrations with core systems. The role also establishes data governance practices, gathers requirements from stakeholders, and translates business needs into governed, production-ready solutions that support data-informed decision-making.

Job Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain Power BI reports and dashboards, including data models, DAX measures, and Power Query transformations.
• Design and maintain the institutional data warehouse, data platform, and data pipelines, including ingestion, ETL/ELT, dimensional modeling, SQL development, incremental refresh, and integrations with core systems such as Banner and Oracle Fusion.
• Design and implement LLM-powered and agentic solutions using enterprise AI platforms, including context engineering, tool/function calling, orchestration, and memory.
• Build retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems over institutional data, including embeddings, vector search, and grounding for accurate, source-based responses.
• Build and support workflow automation and system integrations across the institution, including chatbots, REST APIs, and process automation.
• Implement AI guardrails, evaluation, and responsible-AI practices, and deploy, monitor, and optimize AI solutions in production for accuracy, reliability, and cost.
• Recommend and deploy SaaS and AI solutions, including vendor and platform assessment and requirements definition, and support the procurement team through the acquisition process.
• Establish and maintain data governance and security practices, including data definitions, ownership, audit trails, row-level security, PII handling, and least-privilege access.
• Apply the software development lifecycle, version control (Git), and deployment pipelines to move solutions from requirements through development and testing to production, following the standard change process.
• Produce technical and executive documentation, provide user training and support, and collaborate with cross-functional IT teams to deliver secure, reliable, and interoperable solutions.

Required Qualifications and skills

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Computer Engineering, MIS, or a related discipline.
• Minimum five 5 years of experience in data analytics, business intelligence, and AI or automation solution development, ideally within an enterprise or higher education environment.
• Ability to manage and prioritize workload to deliver high-quality work products on time with minimal direction.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate business needs into technical solutions.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, with the ability to work with both technical and non-technical users.
• Business Intelligence - Power BI report and dashboard development, DAX, Power Query, semantic modeling, and gateway management.
• Data & SQL - SQL query development, relational databases (Oracle preferred), data warehousing, and dimensional modeling.
• AI - LLM-powered and agentic solutions, context engineering, tool/function calling, RAG, embeddings, and vector search.
• Responsible AI & Evaluation - guardrails, output validation, evaluation, and production monitoring.
• Cloud - Microsoft Azure (AI services, App Service, Key Vault, Entra ID) and data platforms such as Microsoft Fabric.
• System Integration - REST API development and consumption, authentication, webhook patterns, and workflow automation.
• Data Governance & Security - data cataloging, ownership, PII handling, and least-privilege access.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, or a related discipline.
• ITIL, PMP, Scrum, or other project management certifications.
• Certifications in cloud, data engineering, or AI-related technologies.

AUS is an equal opportunity employer. We adhere to a policy of making employment decisions without regard to race, color, age, gender, religion, national origin, disabilityor marital status. Opportunities for employment are based solely upon one’s qualifications.