Principal Analytics Engineer

We are an equal opportunity employer committed to building a diverse team. We encourage applications from candidates who may not meet every qualification but are intrigued by the role.

About the Role

This is a fixed hybrid role on-site Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at HQ in Maple Plain, MN. We are looking for a Principal Analytics Engineer to build trusted data foundations that power business decision-making across the company. Working at the intersection of business, analytics, and technology, you will translate complex data and business processes into scalable, well-governed data products. As a senior technical leader, you will partner closely with stakeholders across the business, Analytics, Data Engineering, Architecture, AI, and Software Engineering teams. A key focus will be leading the migration from legacy DOMO reporting to our modern Snowflake and dbt platform, ensuring business logic and reporting knowledge are transformed into sustainable, future-ready data models.

The ideal candidate combines deep SQL and analytics engineering expertise with a strong understanding of business processes, metrics, and systems. You thrive in ambiguity, bridge the gap between technical and business teams, and help ensure data accurately reflects how the organization operates.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design, ownership, and continuous improvement of enterprise analytics data models across multiple business domains.
• Drive the migration of legacy DOMO transformation logic to our modern Snowflake and dbt data platform.
• Partner closely with business stakeholders to understand processes, metrics, operational workflows, controls, and decision-making needs.
• Work with the Analytics team to ensure business definitions, metrics, and data models remain trusted, consistent, and aligned across the organization.
• Collaborate with software development teams and source system owners to understand how data is generated, structured, and maintained.
• Translate complex and often ambiguous business requirements into scalable, maintainable, and well-documented data products.
• Serve as a senior subject matter expert in analytics engineering, SQL, data modeling, metric definition, and business data interpretation.
• Establish and promote best practices for data modeling, documentation, testing, and analytics engineering across the data platform.
• Partner with the Principal Data Engineer and Data Architect to align data architecture, ingestion strategies, transformation frameworks, and consumption patterns.
• Collaborate with the Analytics Quality Engineer to continuously improve data quality, testing, governance, validation, and reliability standards.
• Work closely with AI teams to ensure analytical datasets and semantic models support AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics use cases.
• Serve as a cross-functional subject matter expert, quickly developing expertise across new business domains while helping preserve and scale organizational knowledge through data products and documentation.
• Mentor and support Analytics Engineers, fostering excellence in SQL, data modeling, stakeholder management, business analysis, and analytics engineering best practices.
• Lead complex investigations across business processes, source systems, data pipelines, metrics, and reporting to identify root causes and drive resolution.
• Champion trust in data by ensuring critical datasets and models are accurate, transparent, well-governed, and aligned with real-world business operations.
• Create and maintain clear, comprehensive documentation covering business processes, metric definitions, transformations, data lineage, assumptions, and operational logic.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in Analytics Engineering, Business Intelligence, Data Modeling, Data Warehousing, or related disciplines.
• Significant experience partnering directly with business stakeholders to understand processes, metrics, operational workflows, and business challenges.
• Significant experience designing and maintaining analytical data models across multiple functional domains.
• Expert-level SQL skills with the ability to simplify, optimize, document, and explain complex business logic and transformations.
• Deep understanding of analytical data modeling and data product development.
• Strong business acumen and curiosity, with the ability to quickly understand new domains and connect business processes to data structures.
• Strong experience working in ambiguous environments and bringing structure to complex data landscapes.
• Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to engage effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to work comfortably across multiple domains while maintaining an end-to-end understanding of how business processes connect across the organization.
• Strong understanding of data quality, validation, testing, reconciliation, and root-cause analysis practices.
• Experience establishing standards, best practices, and governance approaches across analytical environments.
• Strong documentation and knowledge sharing practices.
• Experience mentoring and influencing peers and teams without relying on direct authority.
• Experience with Git-based development workflows and CI/CD practices.

Skills

• Experience with dbt or equivalent modern SQL-based transformation frameworks.
• Experience leading or contributing to migrations from legacy analytics environments into modern data platforms.
• Experience with DOMO, including understanding of legacy reporting, ETL, and business logic implementations.
• Experience working with Finance, Human Resources, or other highly governed and business-critical data domains.
• Experience supporting enterprise reporting, KPI governance, semantic modeling, or data governance initiatives.
• Experience with BI platforms such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker, or similar technologies.
• Exposure to data cataloging, metadata management, lineage, observability, or governance platforms.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and annual bonus opportunity.
• Health Insurance: Traditional OR High Deductible plan.
• Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Health Savings Account (including employer contributions).
• Dental and Vision insurance.
• Basic and Supplemental Life Insurance.
• Short-Term and Long-Term Disability.
• Paid caregiver leave.
• PTO + Holiday Pay + Wellness Hours + Volunteer Hours.
• 401k with company match and immediate vesting.
• Employee Stock Purchase Program at a 15% discounted rate.
• Matching grants through Protolabs Foundation.

Pay

$131,500 - $197,300 a year. Protolabs offers a competitive total rewards package, and compensation mix varies based on position, such as base wage, as well as other earnings including incentives and commissions. Actual pay offered will vary depending on multiple factors which may include, without limitation, job function, work experience, specialized skills, training, education, and certifications.

Schedule

Fixed hybrid role on-site Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at HQ in Maple Plain, MN.

Proto Labs maintains ITAR-compliant operations in all of our United States-based facilities. Due to ITAR regulations, this role is only open to U.S. Citizens, lawful permanent residents (green card holders), or foreign nationals granted refugee or asylee status.