Business Data Analyst

Space Ops; Hamilton; On-site; CAD 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Space Ops, a payments data company, seeks a Data Analyst to uncover insights, identify efficiencies, and solve problems at scale in a fast-moving environment. You’ll investigate anomalies, validate ideas with data, and turn insights into actionable business recommendations.

You’ll work with management to shape reporting capabilities, design dashboards, and ensure customer and payment data is handled responsibly, while maintaining a focus on business impact and data integrity.

Qualifications

• Strong SQL and data analysis skills with ability to derive insights from large datasets.
• Root-cause mindset: investigate thoroughly, verify hypotheses with data.
• Non-negotiable data rigor and attention to detail.
• Outside-the-box thinker who can invent approaches when standard ones fail.
• Meticulous and detail-obsessed; doubles-checks work and findings.
• Proactive in using modern BI tools and owning the analytical process.

Responsibilities

• Pull and analyze data; write queries, build reports, answer business questions.
• Hunt for anomalies; surface patterns and flag potential issues early.
• Identify efficiencies and quantify opportunities for business impact.
• Root-cause analysis: reproduce issues, test, and trace sources.
• Design and build dashboards and recurring reporting for visibility.
• Be the go-to data person for numbers, trends, and sanity checks.
• Handle data responsibly; respect privacy and security standards.

Skills

SQL

Data analysis

Problem solving

Attention to detail

Critical thinking

BI tools

Tools

Tableau

Power BI

Looker

Excel

Job description

Here’s the honest version, because “A players” can smell spin a mile away: we’re building a team where the bar is high and rising, and you’d be one of the people who sets it. We hold a high standard for who we let through the door, and it climbs with every hire. Decisions get made on merit and evidence, and “because we’ve always done it that way” isn’t an answer anyone accepts. As an early, defining hire, you won’t just clear the bar; you’ll help raise it, and you’ll have a real hand in shaping how this team works and who joins it next. If you’ve ever been the only one in the building who cared this much about getting it right, this is your chance to stop being that person, and to help build the team you wish you’d had.

The Opportunity

Some people look at a dashboard and see a board. You see the one number that’s wrong and you can’t look away until you know why. Space Ops is a payments company that works with enormous volumes of data every day, and we’re looking for a Data Analyst who is passionate about uncovering insights, identifying efficiencies, and solving problems. Success in this role requires more than technical skills. We’re looking for someone who notices the details others miss, challenges assumptions, and keeps digging until they understand exactly what’s behind the numbers. Meticulous, detail-obsessed, allergic to “good enough.” That’s the energy.

This is a role for a genuine data nerd, but not one who hides behind a dashboard. You’ll investigate anomalies, uncover root causes, validate ideas with data, and turn insights into actionable business recommendations. Working closely with management, you’ll solve complex problems, help shape reporting and analytics capabilities, and ensure customer and payment data is handled responsibly. If you’re excited by challenges that don’t come with an established playbook, you’ll thrive here.

We move fast and encourage people to use every modern tool available to work smarter and more efficiently. But tools don’t replace judgement. The value comes from asking the right questions, validating assumptions, investigating anomalies, and understanding the story behind the data. Above all, we use data to prove ideas, not just support them and to drive meaningful business decisions.

What You’ll Be Doing

Data Analysis & Problem Solving

• Pull and analyze data, constantly.Write queries, build reports, and dig through our data to answer the question of the day (and the three questions it leads to).
• Hunt for anomalies. Surface unusual patterns in the data and flag them before they become problems.
• Find efficiencies;Identify where money, time, or processing is leaking, quantify the opportunity, and tell us not just what’s happening, but what we should do about it.
• Get to the root cause.Don’t stop at the number; figure out what’s behind it. Reproduce issues, test things hands‑on, and trace a problem from symptom to source until you know exactly what’s wrong and why.
• Solve the unusual.Take on problems that don’t have an off‑the‑shelf answer, and work with management to invent one. Think outside the box, propose approaches nobody’s tried, and be ready to learn as you go.
• Prove your ideas before we bet on them.Back test your hypotheses against historical data to see whether a solution would actually have performed. Bring us the evidence, not just the idea.
• Translate numbers into decisions.Turn your analysis into clear, concise recommendations for leadership: no jargon, just the insight and the “so what.”

Reporting, Insights & Business Enablement

• Recommend new reporting. Don’t just run the reports we have; tell us which ones we’re missing. Design and build dashboards and recurring reporting that give the team visibility they didn’t have before.
• Spec what gets built.When something needs to be built by the team rather than by you alone, write clear, well‑scoped PRDs that define what should be built: what it should show, why, and how it should work, so it gets built right the first time.
• Be the go‑to data person.Become the person teammates come to when they need a number, a trend, or a sanity check.

Operational Support & Data Stewardship

• Jump on issues when they hit.Be part of an on‑call rotation to help diagnose and resolve problems when they happen, including the occasional night or weekend. When things are down, every minute counts, and you’ll be one of the people we count on.
• Handle data responsibly.Work with secured systems and personally identifiable (PII) customer data the right way, following access controls, privacy standards, and security best practices at every step.

What We’re Looking For

Passion is the price of entry here, but it isn’t a substitute for skill. The strongest candidates bring both. The first three below are non‑negotiable; the rest matter, but you can grow into some of them.

• Passion, first and foremost.You’re genuinely energized by finding efficiencies, improvements, and the story hidden in the data. This isn’t a box to check; it’s how you’re wired (Non‑negotiable) .
• A root‑cause mindset.You’re not satisfied knowing that something’s wrong; you want to know why, and you’ll test, reproduce, and investigate until you do. (Non‑negotiable.)
• Strong SQL and real comfort working with large datasets. You can get your own answers without waiting on anyone. (Non‑negotiable.)
• An outside‑the‑box thinker who loves to learn. You’re energized by problems that don’t come with a known answer, you’re comfortable inventing your own approach, and you pick up new things fast.
• Meticulous and detail‑obsessed. You notice the small things others miss; you double‑check your work, and a number that’s slightly off will bother you until it’s explained (Within reason: thorough, not paralyzed.). Chasing the last 0.3% is rewarding and exciting.
• You use modern tools well and own the judgment. You reach for whatever helps you work faster and sharper, but you never outsource your thinking to a tool. You trust an output only as far as the foundation behind it holds up.
• The ability to take a messy, open‑ended question and turn it into a clear analysis with a recommendation attached.
• A business brain, not just a data brain. You see how every number ties back to a business outcome: revenue, cost, risk, or the customer. You frame your findings around what they mean for the company, not just what they show.
• You actually use the product space. You buy things online and pay attention to how checkout and payment experiences feel, so you understand the customer’s side of the data, not just the rows in a table.
• Experience working with secured data and PII. You understand how to handle sensitive customer data responsibly. Access controls, data privacy, and security best practices are second nature to you.
• Comfortable writing PRDs / requirements docs. You can clearly specify what a report or dashboard should do so a technical team can build it, defining scope, logic, and the “why” behind it.
• Willing to be on‑call. You’re okay with an on‑call rotation and the occasional off‑hours call when something needs diagnosing, and honestly, a little excited to be the one who fixes it.
• Strong written and verbal communication. You can explain findings to someone who doesn’t live in the data.
• Experience building reports and dashboards in a BI tool (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, Looker, or similar).
• Solid grasp of spreadsheets (Excel / Google Sheets) for quick analysis and modeling.
• Comfortable working on‑site, collaborating shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the team and leadership.

You don’t need every bullet on this list. But if the first three don’t sound like you, this probably isn’t your role, and that’s okay.

Nice to have

• Experience in payments, fintech, banking, or e-commerce.
• Familiarity with Python or R for deeper analysis.
• Understanding of data privacy / security frameworks relevant to payments (e.g., PCI‑DSS, GDPR, or similar).
• Experience setting up automated / recurring reporting from scratch.