Business Intelligence Developer: What Are Their Roles?

A Business Intelligence (BI) developer is essential for helping organizations turn data into clear, actionable insights. They take complex technical information and simplify it using specialized software and tools, enabling businesses to make informed decisions. To build effective BI solutions, a BI developer needs a strong background in various programming languages.

Since its emergence in the early 80s, business intelligence has grown into a crucial industry, empowering companies to make data-driven decisions and improve strategies. BI works by collecting and transforming data from multiple sources, identifying inconsistencies, and providing a clear picture of the business’s current state. With the help of data visualization, BI makes it easy to understand and act on insights in real time.

Without BI, businesses would struggle to stay informed about their operations, making it difficult to allocate resources effectively or enhance processes. BI tools process large datasets from multiple sources and present them in a clear, visual format that’s easy to interpret.

In this article, you'll learn more about the role of a BI developer and how to determine if your business needs one.

What is a BI Developer?

A business intelligence developer is an engineer who develops and maintains software tools to guide business strategies. Often BI developers have experience in developing customer BI products for which they need knowledge of scripting languages, Python, and data visualization.

They use BI software to interpret and display data for a company. Often, BI dev creates tools or troubleshoots them to improve the organization’s research process.

Companies need BI dev as they are technology specialists, who help in repairing and restoring computer programs used for intelligence. They compile and simply provide valuable information for a company. Generally, BI developers build dashboards, reporting tools, and data modeling for a company, making it easy for them to get a better grasp of their data.

Furthermore, they also collaborate with other data scientists and take part in long-term intelligence projects in the company. If you’re interested in seeing a glimpse into the future of data science, make sure to check out our article.

What Role Does a BI Dev Play in a Company?

BI leverages software tools to make the data understandable for businesses. The roles and duties of a BI dev differ depending upon the company type, industry, and size. However, the responsibility of BI dev includes:

Define Requirements for BI Solutions

Business intelligence developers must have a clear understanding of the requirements for BI solutions different for multiple companies. They begin by determining the types of data that need to be analyzed similarly to data science.

Further, choose the reporting techniques and presentation format that will suit the end-users. This process will help to develop a business intelligence solution that meets your company's needs and make better-informed decisions.

Transforms Business Requirements into Technical Requirements

Once the requirements are outlined, the BI developers transform them into technical requirements. For example, defining the reporting capabilities and user interface that are needed to meet them.

They also determine the type of data visualizations used and how end-users will interact with them. This process is essential in ensuring that businesses can make the most of their data.

Develops, Deploys, and Maintains BI Tools:

A Business intelligence developer plays a prominent role in the development of BI platforms. They take care of the development of the tasks, testing, and bug fixing in the pre-launch and post-launch stages.

Therefore, senior experts can also take up and manage the whole development process. Check out this page if you’re looking for top backend development companies.

Contributes to Data Warehouse Designing:

BI dev is responsible for the technical side of data warehousing, from designing and building the system to maintaining it after it's up and running. In most cases, the BI dev works closely with a business analyst (BA) to understand the business needs that the data warehouse will address.

Once the data warehouse is up and running, the BI dev also helps in ongoing maintenance and performance tuning. In some organizations, the BI dev role is combined with that of the ETL (extract, transform, load) developer; in others, there is a separate ETL team.

Prepares User Guides And Documentation

BI developers prepare user guides and write documentation covering the most common questions of technical staff and regular users. These guides aim to help them in dealing with common issues and troubleshooting them if required. Make sure to check our list of top data science development companies.

When To Hire a Business Intelligence Developer?

A Business intelligence developer is responsible for the user-facing part of the data pipeline. This role is valid in cases where there is a strong focus on analytical capabilities, as they can create efficiencies and budget accordingly.

In terms of the whole data pipeline, the BI developer focuses on business requirements and translating them into technical specifications with the help of their technical skills and coding skills like Javascript, Python, etc.

They also work with ETL developers to ensure that data is properly cleansed and transformed before it reaches the end users. Ultimately, the goal of the business intelligence developer is to empower end users with self-service BI tools so that they can make informed decisions.

In cases where the requirements for business intelligence software imply more analytical/reporting complexity, a BI dev becomes an essential role.

You could try to do everything on your own. But wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in your corner who knows a thing or two about business intelligence?

Business Intelligence FAQs

Q1. What are the skills required for business intelligence development?

The business intelligence developer role requires a mix of technical and business skills. On the technical side, BI developers need strong coding skills and experience with business intelligence tools and platforms. They also need to be able to work with databases and understand data modeling concepts. On the business side, BI developers need to be able to understand business requirements and translate them into technical specifications.

Q2. What is the job of business intelligence?

The job of business intelligence is to develop and deploy business intelligence tools and platforms. BI developers also contribute to data warehouse development, prepare user guides and documentation, and help in ongoing maintenance and performance tuning of business intelligence systems. Ultimately, the goal of business intelligence is to empower end users with self-service BI tools so that they can make informed decisions.

Q3. Does business intelligence need coding?

Anyone looking to start a career in business intelligence (BI) should know that coding is necessary for processing data to get useful insights. A BI developer needs coding in the process of data modeling and warehousing stages. However, coding is not required in the other stages of the BI lifecycle. As a business intelligence developer (BI dev), you will be responsible for coding in the data modeling and warehousing stages of BI projects.