You answer questions with data. The tables you query were built by someone else.

• Pull and prepare data to answer the questions the business asks
• Build and maintain the reports and dashboards people rely on
• Investigate why a number changed and explain it to a non-technical audience
• Check data quality and fix problems in the source

You build the tables other people's reports sit on, and you ship them like software.

• Build the shared tables and models the rest of the team works from
• Define what the data means — grain, definitions, business rules
• Version, review and test changes before they reach anyone
• Advise on decisions rather than reporting on them afterwards

You build and run the systems that move the data, and you are on call for them.

• Design and build the pipelines that move data between systems
• Keep them reliable — monitoring, alerting, and fixing failures
• Work at volumes where performance and cost have to be designed for
• Manage infrastructure and deployment as code
• Set technical standards and review other engineers' work