What Is Analytics Engineering? (And What It's Not)

The role of an analytics engineer has emerged as a critical component in data and analytics organizations, bridging the gap between business users and central IT teams. Originating from the evolution of BI tools since the late 1990s, this role gained prominence with the rise of low/no code BI tools like Tableau and Power BI, which facilitated self-service analytics but also presented challenges such as increased training costs and loss of governance. Analytics engineers address these issues by understanding both business requirements and technical aspects, enabling efficient collaboration between LOB users and IT. They gather requirements, build data models, and collaborate with IT to develop data products while ensuring governance and minimizing IT resource utilization. This role is integral to Fusion Teams, where they work alongside data engineers and BI developers to deliver digital initiatives efficiently and cost-effectively. Tools like Sigma are particularly suited for analytics engineers, offering direct query capabilities and intuitive syntax for real-time data validation and visualization, thereby enhancing their ability to create and manage data assets swiftly.