Sr. Business Intelligence Engineer

1872 Consulting; Illinois; Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

1872 Consulting is looking for a Senior Business Intelligence Engineer specializing in Power BI to drive a firm-wide reporting transformation. Based in Chicago, IL, this role requires hands-on development of dashboards and reporting solutions, with a strong emphasis on collaboration with business stakeholders.

The ideal candidate should have at least 5 years of experience in BI solutions creation and deep expertise in Power BI. The position offers a hybrid working environment with three days onsite per week.

Qualifications

• 5+ years delivering enterprise BI solutions, significant hands-on Power BI experience.
• Deep knowledge of advanced DAX and data modeling.
• Strong SQL skills across various data sources.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain Power BI dashboards and visualizations.
• Develop semantic models and write advanced DAX measures.
• Partner with stakeholders to gather requirements and define KPIs.

Skills

Power BI expertise

Advanced DAX

Data modeling fundamentals

SQL and data querying skills

Strong communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Power Query / M

Databricks

Job description

Senior Business Intelligence Engineer (Power BI Specialist)

Location: Chicago, IL — Hybrid, 3 days onsite

Compensation: $100,000 – $150,000

Work Authorization: US Citizens and Green Card holders only

Overview

We're looking for a hands‑on Power BI Specialist to join a core BI team driving a firm‑wide reporting transformation. This is a day‑to‑day development role, building dashboards, semantic models, and reporting solutions in Power BI. Roughly 80% of the work is hands‑on development, with 20% spent partnering directly with business stakeholders on requirements.

This is not a strategic, managerial, or advisory role. We need a true Power BI specialist who lives in the tool daily, knows it deeply, and can deliver production‑ready reporting without hand‑holding.

The team is consolidating legacy reporting from Cognos, SSRS, and other legacy platforms into a modern Power BI + Databricks environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain Power BI dashboards, reports, and visualizations end‑to‑end
• Develop and optimize semantic models, including star schema design, relationships, and cardinality decisions
• Write advanced DAX measures (CALCULATE patterns, time intelligence, row vs. filter context handling)
• Build and maintain Power Query / M transformations
• Partner directly with business stakeholders (Finance, Marketing, and other functions) to gather requirements and define KPIs
• Translate business requirements into technical specifications and working deliverables
• Manage Power BI Service workspaces, deployment pipelines, and Premium capacity considerations
• Implement governance, security, and row‑level security (RLS) within the Power BI environment
• Optimize report performance, refresh schedules, and capacity utilization
• Support migration of legacy reporting (Cognos, SSRS) into Power BI
• Coordinate with data engineering teams when upstream data changes are required

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Data Analytics, or related field
• 5+ years designing and delivering enterprise BI solutions, with significant hands‑on Power BI development
• Deep, day‑to‑day Power BI expertise, including:
• Advanced DAX (row context vs. filter context, CALCULATE, iterators, time intelligence)
• Data modeling fundamentals — star schema, snowflake, relationships, cardinality, bidirectional filtering trade‑offs
• Power Query / M for data transformation
• Dashboard architecture and performance tuning
• Governance and security (RLS, dataset certification, sensitivity labels)
• Strong SQL and data querying skills across relational and cloud‑native data sources
• Experience with Databricks or a comparable cloud data platform (Snowflake, Azure Synapse, etc.)
• Proven ability to engage directly with business stakeholders and operate independently in ambiguous situations
• Strong communication skills — able to clearly articulate technical concepts to non‑technical audiences

Preferred Qualifications

• Legal or professional services industry experience (Big 4, AmLaw, or similar)
• Hands‑on experience with BI modernization or migrations from Cognos / SSRS to Power BI
• Microsoft certifications: PL‑300 (Power BI Data Analyst) or DP‑600 (Fabric Analytics Engineer)
• Exposure to additional BI platforms (Tableau, Cognos, Looker, Qlik) with a clear willingness to specialize in Power BI