JOB TITLE: BI Developer

DEPARTMENT: Information Technology- Data Fabric & Lakehouse

LOCATION: Hybrid-Remote

Exempt/Non-Exempt: Exempt

SUPERVISOR NAME: Wayne Peacock

SUPERVISOR TITLE: Vice President of IT & CIO

 

GENERAL PURPOSE OF THE JOB:

Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCUHS) is transforming how its administration and faculty understand and use data. We are building a cloud-native Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse on a Medallion Architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold), and we need someone who can translate that investment into insight that changes decisions.

We are not looking for a report-runner. We are looking for a BI Developer who acts as a strategic partner to our academic and administrative leaders—someone who sits with a budget director or a program chair, understands their real problem, and builds a Power BI solution that changes how they lead. Think of our Lakehouse as the city’s water supply—clean, governed, and reliably flowing. Your job is to design the pipes, faucets, and fixtures that deliver the right data, in the right form, to every office and program on campus.

You will work directly with stakeholders to gather requirements, prototype and iterate rapidly, and proactively recommend alternatives that better accomplish the business objectives—drawing from both our Lakehouse Gold layer and our legacy data sources during the migration transition.

 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

  • Partner With Stakeholders: You will be the primary interface between IT and SCUHS’s business and academic units. You will facilitate requirements sessions, translate ambiguous business questions into data models, and iterate rapidly with prototype-first development cycles. When a stakeholder asks for a chart, you will first ask what decision they are trying to make.

 

  • Design and Deliver Power BI Solutions: You will design, build, and publish production-grade Power BI reports and dashboards for administration (Finance, HR, Enrollment, Advancement) and faculty (research analytics, academic program performance). You will own the full lifecycle from canvas design to workspace deployment.  Beauty and function both matter in your final product – a beautiful dashboard/report that doesn’t provide insight to the user is a failure.

 

  • Build and Govern Semantic Models: You will author and maintain Power BI semantic models in Direct Lake mode, connecting directly to Gold-layer Delta tables in our Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse—the institutional Single Source of Truth. All DAX measures must implement definitions approved in the Data Governance Council’s Business Glossary; you will never define a competing version of an institutional metric. You will configure row-level security (RLS) derived from the governance program’s RBAC role definitions, ensuring that a dean sees program-level data, a department chair sees their department, and an executive sees across all units—consistently enforced at the semantic model layer.

 

  • Recommend Smarter Alternatives: When a stakeholder requests a specific report format, you will evaluate whether that format actually serves the business objective—recommending paginated reports for Finance, embedded Power BI visuals in SharePoint, or Excel PivotTables connected to a live semantic model when those are the better fit.  If Power BI isn’t the right solution, you offer alternatives and prototypes to make your case.

 

  • Write SQL and DAX With Precision: You will write T-SQL and Spark SQL queries against the Lakehouse SQL Analytics Endpoint to prepare data for visualization. You will author robust DAX measures that accurately implement Business Glossary definitions approved by the Data Governance Council—when the DGC defines how “enrolled student” or “retention rate” is calculated, your measures reflect that canonical definition precisely. You will document all calculations in plain English for stakeholder review, contributing technical metadata to the dbt-powered data catalog so that any consumer can trace a number from dashboard to Gold-layer table to source system.

 

  • Govern the BI Environment: You will be an active participant in SCUHS’s Data Governance Program, working closely with the Data Governance Council and domain stewards to ensure that every report and dataset you deliver adheres to approved definitions, access policies, and data classification standards. You will manage the Power BI workspace structure, naming conventions, sensitivity labels, and dataset endorsement workflow in alignment with governance decisions—and when policies or definitions change, you will ensure your solutions reflect those changes promptly and consistently.  You’ll certify reports in tandem with domain stewards.

  

  • Support and Enhance Existing Solutions: You will maintain and improve the current portfolio of Power BI reports from our legacy Azure SQL Database environment, migrating them to Direct Lake mode as Gold-layer tables become available through our Medallion Architecture rollout.

 

Additional Duties:

  • You manage rapid turnaround from discovery to prototype, often delivering a working Power BI draft within days.
  • You structure your work to ensure alignment between data sources (Gold layer), semantic models, and final dashboards, maintaining consistency, performance, and auditability across deliverables.

 

Attendance
Must be punctual and timely in meeting all requirements of performance, including, but not limited to, attendance standards and work deadlines; beginning and ending assignments on time; and scheduled work breaks, where applicable.

 

Onsite:

This role requires onsite support on an as-needed basis to fulfill essential job functions. Onsite activities may include, but are not limited to, meeting in person with individuals or small groups at one of our campuses.

 

Intellectual

  • Analytical - Synthesizes complex or diverse information; Collects and researches data; Uses intuition and experience to complement data.
  • Design - Generates creative solutions; Translates concepts and information into images; Uses feedback to modify designs; Applies design principles; Demonstrates attention to detail.
  • Problem Solving - Identifies and resolves problems in a timely manner; Gathers and analyzes information skillfully; Develops alternative solutions; Works well in group problem solving situations.
  • Project Management - Communicates changes and progress; Completes projects on time and budget; Manages project team activities.
  • Technical Skills - Assesses own strengths and weaknesses; Pursues training and development opportunities; Strives to continuously build knowledge and skills; Shares expertise with others.

 

Interpersonal

  • Customer Service - Manages difficult or emotional customer situations; Responds promptly to customer needs; Solicits customer feedback to improve service; Responds to requests for service and assistance; Meets commitments.
  • External Working Relationships – Develops and maintains courteous and effective working relationships with clients, vendors and/or any other representatives of external organizations.
  • Teamwork - Balances team and individual responsibilities; Exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views; Gives and welcomes feedback; Contributes to building a positive team spirit; Puts success of team above own interests; Able to build morale and group commitments to goals and objectives; Supports everyone's efforts to succeed.

 

Leadership

  • You confidently challenge report requests that do not serve business outcomes and guide stakeholders toward better approaches, ensuring alignment with governance standards and organizational goals.
  • You uphold data governance principles by reinforcing approved metric definitions and aligning all outputs with the Data Governance Council standards.

Organization

  • Business Necessity – The needs of the employer may be dependent on responding to and anticipating rapidly changing external and internal demands in all aspects of how business is conducted. This may include, but is not limited to, organization structure, finances, goals, personnel, work processes, technology, and customer demands. Therefore, it may become necessary to make modifications to how business is conducted, and work is accomplished, with minimal or no advance notice to employees. Accordingly, the employee must be capable of adapting, with minimal or no advance notice, to changes in how business is conducted, and work is accomplished, with no diminishment in work performance.
  • Safety and Security –All employees are responsible for observing safety and security procedures as applicable and reporting potentially unsafe conditions to management.

 


SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

This job has no supervisory responsibilities.

 

EDUCATION

Bachelor's degree (B.A.) from four-year college or university in Computer Science, Information Systems, Statistics, or related quantitative field; or three to five years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

 

EXPERIENCE:

  • Must have: Demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Power BI—you have built, published, and governed production reports and dashboards in Power BI Service.
  • Must have: Proficiency in DAX for calculated measures, KPIs, and time-intelligence calculations.
  • Must have: Working proficiency in SQL (T-SQL or Spark SQL) for data preparation and ad hoc analysis.

 

COMPUTER SKILLS:

  • Visualization: Power BI (Desktop, Service, Embedded, Paginated Reports).
  • Semantic Layer: Power BI Direct Lake mode, connected to Microsoft Fabric OneLake (Gold layer).
  • Query Languages: DAX (Expert), T-SQL / Spark SQL (Proficient).
  • Data Platform: Microsoft Fabric (Lakehouse, SQL Analytics Endpoint, Data Factory, Pipelines).
  • Source Systems: Jenzabar (SIS/ERP), Canvas (LMS), and institutional research data stores.
  • Collaboration: Azure DevOps (Git-backed), Microsoft Teams, SharePoint.
  • Licensing Context: Microsoft 365 A5 with Fabric capacity; Power BI Pro embedded within A5 tenant.

 

Additional Skills:

  • Must have: Demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Power BI—you have built, published, and governed production reports and dashboards in Power BI Service.
  • Must have: Proficiency in DAX for calculated measures, KPIs, and time-intelligence calculations.
  • Must have: Working proficiency in SQL (T-SQL or Spark SQL) for data preparation and ad hoc analysis.

 

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS:

  • Microsoft certifications (PL-300, DP-600) are a plus but not required.

 

OTHER SKILLS AND ABILITIES/ QUALIFICATIONS:

  • 3+ years of experience in BI development, data analytics, or a related field.
  • Experience building and governing Power BI semantic models, including row-level security (RLS) implementation.
  • Experience with stakeholder requirements gathering and iterative, prototype-driven delivery.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to explain data concepts to non-technical audiences.
  • Experience in higher education, healthcare, or similar mission-driven organizations is a plus.
  • Experience with Microsoft Fabric or a comparable Lakehouse platform (Databricks, Synapse Analytics, Snowflake).

 

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to sit; and talk or hear. The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; and taste or smell.

This position primarily involves sedentary work, requiring prolonged periods of sitting and working at a computer. The role requires frequent use of hands and fingers for typing, as well as the ability to view and interpret data on a computer screen for extended periods. Occasional standing, walking, and light lifting (up to 25 pounds) may be required. The position may also involve attending onsite meetings or moving between office locations as needed. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

 

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential job functions.

This position operates primarily in a professional office or remote work environment. The role involves working extensively with computers, data systems, and virtual collaboration tools. The environment is typically quiet to moderate noise level, with occasional interruptions during meetings or collaborative sessions.

Depending on business needs, the position may require occasional onsite attendance for meetings, team collaboration, or stakeholder engagement. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally exposed to the outside weather conditions.

 

Expectations of SCU Employees

The SCU President’s Cabinet has identified a set of values and attributes that are bare minimums for employment, those that are core to who we are as a university, and values to which we aspire.  Further identified are qualities and attributes desirable for employees in general, and senior leadership specifically.  This is in harmony with principles found in The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni.

 

SCU Core Values:

1) Integrative Health: We teach, learn, collaborate, and lead by creating an open environment for multiple disciplines and professionals to bring their shared and unique skills together for the benefit of patients and students.

2) Evidence-based Practice: We value a culture of inquiry, assessment, research, scholarship, and judicious use of current best evidence to inform our decisions and work.

3) Health Equity: We value people equally. We strive to educate graduates that are prepared to improve individual and community health.

4) Inclusivity: We welcome everyone regardless of age, race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, disability, or any other similar or protected status. We believe inclusivity leads to more diversity in our reasoning, better representativeness in our conclusions, more ingenuity in our problem solving, and greater equity in our care

 

Profile Qualities:

1) Customer service focused

2) Willing to invest in student/client success by fostering positive relations, guidance, and assistance

3) A belief that no task that improves the University is beneath us/servant leadership

4) Be an ambassador of the brand

5) Be a part of recruitment

6) Resource innovator

 

Profile-Specific Qualities by Category:

1.) They promote positivity and teamwork

a. They actively work to build up teams and break down silos

b. They actively work to be part of the solution

c. They actively work to empower themselves and their teammates, working together in decision making processes

 

2.) They see how they can affect the bigger picture

a. They understand how their role helps to build the future of integrative healthcare

b. They pay attention to the details.