Principal - Technical Business Analyst, Data Products & Platforms

Simple Machines; Sydney; On-site; AUD 150,000 - 195,000; Full time

Job summary

Simple Machines is seeking a senior, technically credible analyst-advocate on data platform and data product engagements, acting as the customer’s proxy inside delivery. This is a data specialist who understands data movement, structure, sources, and what it means in business terms; reads data models and source-to-target mappings, and verifies data with SQL.

You will shape solutions with the tech lead, translate requirements into documentation, and keep engagements moving.

Qualifications

• A data-focused technical BA, engagement analyst or consultant, or an engineer/analyst who moved into the analyst seat
• SQL fluency is essential and used to profile and validate data
• Reads and reasons about data models and source-to-target mappings; knows a modern cloud data stack and ETL/ELT
• Strong requirements craft: elicitation, workshops, acceptance criteria, backlog, RAID
• Not a software, process or ERP BA; user-story-only BAs without SQL are not a fit
• Liquidity between business intent and technical delivery in workshops and documentation

Responsibilities

• Act as the customer’s proxy inside delivery and shape the solution with the tech lead
• Turn the agreed solution into clear requirements and documentation to keep engagements moving
• Think in outcomes, prioritisation and value when engagements call for a data product lens
• Engage across data platform, data product, and governance initiatives

Skills

SQL fluent

Data fluency

Requirements elicitation

Stakeholder proxy

Critical thinking

Business-technical translation

Workshop facilitation

UAT

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

BigQuery

dbt

Azure

AWS

GCP

Jira

Confluence

Data modelling

ETL/ELT

Job description

We are looking for a senior, technically credible analyst-advocate on data platform and data product engagements, acting as the customer’s proxy inside delivery. This is a data specialist, not a software or process BA: the person understands how data moves, how it is structured, where it comes from and what it means in business terms, reads data models and source-to-target mappings, and gets into the data to verify it. SQL fluency is essential. You will understand the client’s problem more deeply than anyone in the room, form and defend a clear point of view, shape the solution alongside the tech lead, and turn that into the requirements and documentation that keep engagements moving. Because this is a consulting role, you can also step beyond requirements into a data product lens, thinking in outcomes, prioritisation and value when an engagement calls for it. It flexes across data platform, data product and governance initiatives.

Required background:

• A data-focused technical BA, engagement analyst or consultant, or an engineer / analyst who moved into the analyst seat, or wants to
• Deep data understanding: how data moves, is structured, where it
• comes from and what it means in business terms
• SQL-fluent (must-have): explores, profiles and validates data independently
• Reads and reasons about data models and source-to-target mappings; knows a modern cloud data stack and ETL / ELT
• Strong requirements craft: elicitation, workshops, acceptance criteria, backlog, RAID
• Not a software, process or ERP BA; user-story-only BAs without SQL are not a fit

Core capabilities:

• Data fluency: how data moves, is structured, sourced, and what it means in business terms
• Requirements elicitation, analysis and prioritisation
• Customer advocacy and stakeholder proxy
• Critical thinking, problem solving and logical reasoning
• Translation between business intent and technical delivery
• Workshop facilitation, acceptance criteria, validation and UAT

Technologies and ecosystems, exposure to – not mandatory:

• SQL (must-have, fluent: explore, profile, validate)
• Data modelling and source-to-target mapping
• Modern stack: Databricks / Snowflake / BigQuery, dbt, Azure / AWS / GCP
• Pipelines and ETL / ELT; Jira / Confluence
• Written and communication capabilities:
• Strong, structured written craft: status reports, proposals, specs
• Clear executive communication; produces high-quality material independently

About Simple Machines

Simple Machines is a global, independent technology consultancy operating across Sydney, New Zealand, London, Poland and San Francisco. We design and build modern data platforms, intelligent systems, and bespoke software at the intersection ofData Engineering, Software EngineeringandAI.

We help enterprises, scale-ups, and government turn complex, high-value data into products, platforms, and decisions that drive real impact.

We don’t do generic. We build things that matter -We engineer data to life.