Principal Data Visualization Architect Jobs in California

Summary

The Senior Data Visualization Architect / BI Designer is a highly specialized role responsible for transforming complex data into clear, intuitive, and visually compelling analytical experiences. This role combines deep expertise in Power BI and Tableau with strong UX/UI and product thinking to design and deliver dashboards, reports, and data stories that directly support decision-making across finance, content sales operations, and executive audiences. This role will partner closely with business stakeholders and data teams to understand user questions, translate them into visual requirements, and design dashboards that are not only accurate, performant, but also beautiful, easy to use, and consistent with enterprise standards.

Responsibilities

• Design and build high-quality dashboards and reports in Power BI and Tableau that are intuitive, visually compelling, and aligned to answer business questions.
• Translate ambiguous user requests, sketches, or ideas into structured visual specifications (wireframes, mockups, layout options).
• Apply best practices in data storytelling, layout, color, typography, and interaction design to maximize clarity and usability.
• Conduct working sessions with business users to understand their goals, metrics, workflows, and pain points.
• Convert business questions into well‑defined measures, visuals, filters, and navigation flows.
• Iterate quickly on prototypes and designs based on user feedback before committing to full build.
• Collaborate with data engineering and modeling teams to ensure semantic layers, data models, and calculation logic support required visualizations.
• Design and implement measures, calculated columns, and DAX/LOD expressions (as applicable) to support advanced analytics and flexible slicing/dicing.
• Ensure dashboards are performant and scalable, especially for large datasets and high concurrency use cases.
• Define and maintain visualization standards and design guidelines (e.g., templates, themes, color palettes, navigation patterns) across Power BI and Tableau.
• Develop and curate reusable components (report templates, shared datasets, KPIs, visual patterns) to accelerate future dashboard development.
• Coach other analysts/developers on data visualization best practices and tool capabilities.
• Ensure all visualizations are data‑accurate, consistent with source‑of‑truth definitions, and aligned with data governance standards.
• Implement validation, peer review, and testing practices to minimize defects and metric confusion.
• Partner with data governance and security teams to ensure appropriate access controls, row‑level security, and data sensitivity are respected.
• Act as a trusted advisor to business and technology stakeholders on how to best present visual KPIs, trends, and complex business concepts.
• Present dashboard concepts and demos to senior leadership, clearly explaining design rationales and trade‑offs.
• Champion a data storytelling culture, helping teams think beyond static reports toward interactive, insight‑driven experiences.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in Business Intelligence, Data Visualization, or Analytics, with a focus on dashboard/report design
• 8+ years of (Expert‑level) proficiency in both Power BI and Tableau
• 8+ years of (strong) understanding of data visualization principles (e.g., pre‑attentive attributes, chart selection, cognitive load, storytelling)
• Experience in Media, Entertainment, Finance, or Content Monetization Analytics (e.g., P&L, forecasting, title performance, sales planning)
• Familiarity with Snowflake or other cloud data platforms and working with centralized semantic models for BI
• Experience with design tools (e.g., Figma, Adobe XD, or similar) for rapid prototyping and UI mockups
• Background in UX/UI design, human‑centered design, or design thinking applied to analytics and BI

Preferred

• Experience in Media, Entertainment, Finance, or Content Monetization Analytics (e.g., P&L, forecasting, title performance, sales planning)
• Familiarity with Snowflake or other cloud data platforms and working with centralized semantic models for BI
• Experience with design tools (e.g., Figma, Adobe XD, or similar) for rapid prototyping and UI mockups
• Background in UX/UI design, human‑centered design, or design thinking applied to analytics and BI

Technology

• Expert‑level proficiency in both Power BI and Tableau
• Advanced calculations (DAX / M / custom measures in Power BI; LOD, table calcs in Tableau)
• Data modeling and semantic layer design
• Parameterization, dynamic visuals, and advanced filtering/navigation techniques

Soft Skills

• Proven ability to design visually polished, user‑friendly dashboards that have been widely adopted by business users
• Strong understanding of data visualization principles (pre‑attentive attributes, chart selection, cognitive load, storytelling)
• Demonstrated experience working with large and complex datasets, joining multiple sources, and optimizing performance
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills: able to draw out user needs, challenge unclear requirements, and explain design choices in plain language
• Experience working in product‑oriented, agile environments, collaborating with product managers, data engineers, and business stakeholders

Education

N/A