BI developer jobs on carbon.talent, for people who build the reporting layer businesses run on: semantic models, dashboards, scheduled reports and the SQL underneath. BI development has quietly changed over the last few years, with more modelling and governance and fewer one-off reports. Roles are offered full-time, on contract and part-time. This guide covers the tools that recur, how BI interviews work, and how to show that your dashboards actually get used.
Humana · Remote · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-23
EngiFlex · Remote · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-23
virtual7 GmbH · Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland · Posted 2026-10-22
Fractl Consulting · Remote · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-20
virtual7 GmbH · Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Deutschland · Posted 2026-10-18
VELAIO · Remote · Full-time · Posted 2026-10-16
Decathlontechnology · Paris, Paris · Posted 2026-10-15
A BI developer turns data into reporting products that people trust and return to. The work spans gathering requirements, modelling data for reporting, building dashboards and paginated reports, managing refresh schedules and permissions, and supporting users. In many teams the BI developer also owns the semantic layer: the measures, hierarchies and relationships that let business users explore data without writing SQL.
Tool choice shapes the job. Microsoft-centred organisations use Power BI, often with SQL Server, Azure and increasingly Microsoft Fabric. Others use Tableau, Looker, Qlik or newer tools that sit on a cloud warehouse. Older estates may still run SSRS or SSIS. Listings often name one primary tool; deep skill in it, plus solid SQL and data modelling, matters more than surface familiarity with several.
Data modelling is the skill that separates strong BI developers. Star schemas, fact and dimension tables, handling many-to-many relationships, and designing measures that calculate correctly at every level of a report come up in most interviews. Expect a practical exercise: build a small model and a report from a sample dataset, then explain your choices and how you would make it perform well with more data.
BI interviews also probe requirements gathering. You might be asked how you would handle a stakeholder who wants twenty charts on one page, or two departments that define revenue differently. Strong answers show that you start with the decision the report supports, agree definitions in writing, and prototype quickly so feedback arrives early.
Usage is the best evidence of a good dashboard. If you can, track how many people use your reports and which ones were retired because nobody opened them. In interview, describe a report that replaced manual work, the time saved and how you know people relied on it. That beats a gallery of screenshots.
Governance is a growing part of BI work: workspace structure, row-level security, certified datasets, deployment pipelines between development and production, and documentation of measures. Organisations that have grown their BI estate quickly often hire specifically to bring order to it. Experience cleaning up a sprawling estate is valuable and worth describing in detail.
BI development is one of the most common data roles on contract, especially for migrations between tools, rebuilding reporting after a system change, or delivering a set of reports for a new department. Part-time and fractional BI support also suits smaller organisations that need one person a couple of days a week. Remote BI roles usually expect overlap with business hours, since users ask questions throughout the day.
Questions to ask an employer: how many reports exist and how many are used; who owns definitions of key metrics; what the refresh and licensing setup looks like; and whether there is a development and production separation. The answers show whether you will build new things or untangle old ones.
Common mistakes for BI developers include building a new report for every request instead of extending existing ones, putting complex logic inside report formulas where nobody can test it, and launching dashboards without validating figures against the finance team's numbers. Each erodes trust. Experienced developers push logic upstream into the warehouse or semantic model, reuse certified datasets and confirm totals before anyone sees the first draft.
Questions to ask an employer include how many reports are in use, who owns the semantic models, whether there is a certified dataset programme and how report requests are prioritised. The answers show whether you will spend your time building useful new things or untangling years of report sprawl.
Career paths include senior BI developer, BI lead or manager, analytics engineering for those drawn to modelling in code, and data architecture. carbon.talent lists BI roles with their employment type and locations, and you can apply from a free profile.
Builds and maintains reporting: data models, dashboards, scheduled reports, refreshes and permissions, often including the semantic layer business users rely on.
Usually one main BI tool, such as Power BI, Tableau, Looker or Qlik, plus strong SQL and data modelling. Microsoft estates may add SSIS, SSRS, Azure or Fabric.
Typically a modelling and report-building exercise, SQL questions, and scenarios about handling conflicting requirements and definitions.
Yes, frequently, especially for tool migrations and reporting rebuilds.