Lead Analytics Engineer at Chief Detective LLC

Location: Remote (Eligible US States: California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, or Washington)

OVERVIEW

Chief Detective is a growth-focused agency and deep brand partner working with D2C brands (notably in the apparel and beauty spaces).

We're hiring a Lead Analytics Engineer to own the systems that power accurate, fast, and trusted performance reporting across our internal team and client work. This role sits at the intersection of analytics engineering (dbt modeling and data quality), data engineering (pipelines and warehouses), and lightweight full-stack / platform work (automation, AI integration, and reliability).

Our core stack: BigQuery, GCP (including Vertex AI / Gemini), dbt Cloud, Looker Studio, Cloud Run, App Script, AppSheet, and Make.com. ClickUp for project management.

THE ROLE

You'll own our "data product" layer end-to-end — from ingestion and modeling through reporting, automation, and the AI-powered features layered on top of it.

Key Responsibilities:

• Data Modeling & dbt Ownership: Design and maintain dbt models from staging to marts, with thorough documentation and testing. Own production workflows in dbt Cloud — scheduled runs, CI-style validation, tests, and controlled deploys.
• Pipeline Management: Build and maintain reliable batch and scheduled data pipelines into BigQuery. Stand up custom extractions when managed connectors don't expose what we need (e.g., pulling specific Meta Ads fields not surfaced by off-the-shelf connectors).
• Reporting & Cost-Aware Optimization: Build and support reporting in Looker Studio. Performance-tune models with awareness that Looker Studio queries drive BigQuery cost.
• AI Integration: Identify and leverage Vertex AI and Gemini APIs already provisioned in our GCP project to build new AI-powered data flows, enrichments, and reporting features. We want this used aggressively, not as a side project.
• Lightweight Full-Stack & Automation: Maintain and extend the small Python scripts embedded in our Make.com nodes (custom API calls). Contribute to — and over time help lead — building our own branded app for displaying tools and data, with the longer-term goal of reducing dependence on Looker Studio.
• Reliability & Monitoring: Implement monitoring and alerting for data freshness and pipeline failures.
• GCP Operations: Manage GCP fundamentals (projects, IAM, service accounts, secrets) at the level needed to keep pipelines and automations running safely.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with our team and leadership to define and maintain trusted KPI definitions and analytics deliverables for clients. May direct our technical project manager on relevant tasks.
• Project Management: Operate within ClickUp, maintaining clear scopes, milestones, and written updates.

Requirements:

• Strong SQL proficiency, with hands-on BigQuery experience strongly preferred.
• Proven experience running dbt in production (building models, writing tests, managing job scheduling in dbt Cloud).
• Python proficiency sufficient to write and maintain small automation services and custom API integrations (Make.com glue scripts, Cloud Run / Cloud Functions, scripts that hit ad platform and ecommerce APIs).
• AI engineering experience: practical use of LLM APIs (Vertex AI, Gemini, or comparable) to build production data flows, enrichments, or features — not just prompt-level usage.
• AI tool fluency: comfortable leveraging AI-assisted coding and agentic tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, etc.) to accelerate development, automate boilerplate, and debug efficiently.
• Working knowledge of Google Cloud (GCP) fundamentals, including projects, IAM, service accounts, and secret management.
• Exceptional debugging skills: the ability to trace a "dashboard is wrong" ticket all the way back through models and pipelines to the source.
• Familiarity with Git and standard pull request (PR) workflows.
• Strong communication and documentation habits (runbooks, metric definitions, system notes).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Mathematics, a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., Google Cloud Professional Data Engineer).
• Experience with marketing or ecommerce analytics data (ad platforms, Shopify, GA4-style event data).
• Front-end / full-stack experience (React, Next.js, or similar) — relevant to our longer-term branded-app goal.
• Familiarity with GCP workflow and serverless tools (Cloud Run, Cloud Scheduler / Workflows, Pub/Sub).
• Data observability patterns (freshness SLAs, anomaly detection, alert tuning).
• Infrastructure-as-code experience (e.g., Terraform) or CI/CD pipeline ownership.

BENEFITS

• Competitive Salary: $130k–$160k, commensurate with experience.
• Comprehensive Benefits: Group medical, dental, and vision coverage; short and long-term disability; life insurance; 401(k) eligibility after one year of service with matching contributions; paid time off; sick leave; an Employee Assistance Program, and more.
• Professional Growth: Opportunity to shape our analytics future, access ongoing professional development, and scale your career quickly.
• Innovative Culture: Work with a passionate, entrepreneurial team dedicated to building game-changing analytics solutions in a flexible, supportive environment.
• Job Location: While this is a remote position (outside of occasional requests to work in-person), you ideally will live and work in the state of Oregon, but strong resumes from California, Colorado, and Washington states will also be considered.

If you're ready to leverage data and innovation to fuel explosive growth and love the idea of working closely with smart, driven colleagues, we can't wait to meet you.

Learn more about Chief Detective at www.chiefdetective.com!