Operational Analytics Jobs in Iowa (NOW HIRING)

What You'll Do

We are looking for someone who can partner with business leaders and cross-functional teams across Strategy, Marketing, Customer Experience to shape analytics opportunities, guide solution direction, and translate complex analytical work into clear business decisions and actions. Leads analytics initiatives across a domain or portfolio of work, connecting stakeholder needs, data considerations, technical capabilities, and business strategy to deliver measurable value.

This role serves as a strategic translator and thought partner, helping stakeholders frame business problems, evaluate analytics and AI-enabled opportunities, understand trade-offs, and prioritize work that supports business outcomes. The role influences, connects work across initiatives, and helps mature the analytics consulting practice through strong stakeholder engagement, storytelling, enablement, and execution discipline.

Core Responsibilities

• Builds and maintains strategic relationships with business stakeholders, to understand business priorities, and opportunities for analytics to create value.
• Leads discovery and strategic framing conversations to clarify business problems, define success criteria, identify measurable outcomes, and translate stakeholder priorities into analytics opportunities
• Shapes how analytics, modeling and AI capabilities are applied to solve business problems, understanding business context, feasibility, trade-offs, and expected value.
• Leads complex analytics initiatives from discovery through delivery, ensuring scope, dependencies, milestones, risks, and stakeholder expectations are clearly defined, managed, and communicated.
• Connects work across initiatives to identify synergies, gaps, risks, dependencies, and opportunities to improve consistency, sequencing, and business impact across the portfolio.
• Partners with technical teams, data owners, and governance partners to assess data availability, quality, relevance, limitations, and readiness; communicates data considerations in business terms and helps shape feasible solution paths.
• Influences prioritization by connecting analytics work to broader business outcomes, stakeholder strategies, and organizational priorities.
• Drives clear, consistent communication throughout the initiative lifecycle, including progress, decisions, risks, assumptions, changes, and value delivered.
• Develops compelling narratives that connect analytics insights to business outcomes, using storytelling to influence stakeholder understanding, adoption, and action.
• Educates stakeholders on analytics capabilities, data literacy, modeling concepts, metrics, and solution implications to support adoption and more confident decision-making.

Who You Are

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Analytics, Technology, Marketing, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 4+ years of experience in consulting, strategy, analytics, product management, program management, business transformation, or related disciplines.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to understand organizational goals, operational processes, stakeholder needs, and opportunities to drive business value.
• Demonstrated ability to frame ambiguous business problems, facilitate stakeholder alignment, define success measures, evaluate alternative approaches, and translate needs into actionable solutions.
• Strong consulting, facilitation, and communication skills, including the ability to influence stakeholders, tailor messages to different audiences, and present recommendations to leaders.
• Familiarity with emerging analytics and AI capabilities and the ability to identify opportunities where these approaches can support business outcomes, improve decision-making, or enhance stakeholder experiences.
• Understanding of analytics, AI, and modeling approaches, including descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, with the ability to explain use cases, trade-offs, risks, and business implications to non-technical audiences.
• Working knowledge of data environments, data quality considerations, governance processes, and analytics or business intelligence tools (e.g., SQL, Power BI, Tableau, Python, R, or similar), with an emphasis on interpretation, application, and business translation rather than hands-on model development.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment while maintaining clarity, alignment, and focus on measurable business value; experience coaching or mentoring others and contributing to team practices, standards, or ways of working preferred.

Salary Range Information
Salary ranges below reflect targeted base salaries. Non-sales positions have the opportunity to participate in a bonus program. Sales positions are eligible for sales incentives, and in some instances a bonus plan, whereby total compensation may far exceed base salary depending on individual performance. Actual compensation for all roles will be based upon geographic location, work experience, education, licensure requirements and/or skill level and will be finalized at the time of offer.
Salary Range (Non-Exempt expressed as hourly; Exempt expressed as yearly)
$90000 - $132000 / year
Salary Details

The following salary ranges reflect market-specific compensation for this position across multiple job levels. Candidates will be evaluated to determine the appropriate job level based on their skills and experience. 

• Data & Analytics Consultant: $90,000 - $110,000 / year
• Sr. Data & Analytics Consultant: $110,000 - $132,000 / year

Time Off Program
Flexible Time Off (FTO) is provided to salaried (exempt) employees and provides the opportunity to take time away from the office with pay for vacation, personal or short-term illness. Employees don't accrue a bank of time off under FTO and there is no set number of days provided.
Pension Eligible
Yes

Work Environment

This role is located in our Des Moines office.  We offer a hybrid work arrangement with 3-days in the office and 2-days remotely. 

Job Level

We’ll consider talent at the Data & Analytics Consultant level and Sr. Data & Analytics Consultant level.  

Work Authorization/Sponsorship

At this time, we're not considering candidates that need any type of immigration sponsorship now or in the future or those needing work authorization for this role. (This includes, but is not limited to students on F1-OPT, F1-CPT, J-1, etc.) 

Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants

Investment Code of Ethics

For Principal Global Investors positions, you’ll need to follow an Investment Code of Ethics related to personal and business conduct as well as personal trading activities for you and members of your household. These same requirements may also apply to other positions across the organization.

Experience Principal

At Principal, we value connecting on both a personal and professional level. Together, we’re imagining a more purpose-led future for financial services – and that starts with you. Our success depends on the unique experiences, backgrounds, and talents of our employees. And we support our employees the same way we support our customers: with comprehensive, competitive benefit offerings crafted to protect their physical, financial, and social well-being. Check out our careers site to learn more about our purpose, values and benefits.

Principal is an Equal Opportunity Employer

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.

Posting Window
We will accept applications for 3 full days following the Original Posting Date, after which the posting may remain open or be removed based upon applications received. If we choose to post the job again, we will accept additional applications for at least 1 full day following the Most Recently Posted Date. Please submit applications in a timely manner as there is no guarantee the posting will be available beyond the applicable deadline.
Original Posting Date
7/10/2026
Most Recently Posted Date
7/10/2026
 

Principal uses artificial intelligence tools to assist in reviewing and evaluating job applications, fraud prevention, and candidate matching and comparisons. These AI tools support our human recruiters in the initial review process but do not make final hiring decisions without human involvement. By submitting your application, you acknowledge this use of AI in our recruitment process. Please review our Workforce (U.S.) Privacy Notice for more details on our practices and your data privacy rights.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Analytics, Technology, Marketing, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• 4+ years of experience in consulting, strategy, analytics, product management, program management, business transformation, or related disciplines.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to understand organizational goals, operational processes, stakeholder needs, and opportunities to drive business value.
• Demonstrated ability to frame ambiguous business problems, facilitate stakeholder alignment, define success measures, evaluate alternative approaches, and translate needs into actionable solutions.
• Strong consulting, facilitation, and communication skills, including the ability to influence stakeholders, tailor messages to different audiences, and present recommendations to leaders.
• Familiarity with emerging analytics and AI capabilities and the ability to identify opportunities where these approaches can support business outcomes, improve decision-making, or enhance stakeholder experiences.
• Understanding of analytics, AI, and modeling approaches, including descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analytics, with the ability to explain use cases, trade-offs, risks, and business implications to non-technical audiences.
• Working knowledge of data environments, data quality considerations, governance processes, and analytics or business intelligence tools (e.g., SQL, Power BI, Tableau, Python, R, or similar), with an emphasis on interpretation, application, and business translation rather than hands-on model development.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, ambiguous environment while maintaining clarity, alignment, and focus on measurable business value; experience coaching or mentoring others and contributing to team practices, standards, or ways of working preferred.

Education:UNAVAILABLEEmployment Type: FULL_TIME