Principal Data Analyst (Local to Minnesota)

Title: Principal Data Analyst Duration: 6 months contract-to-hire Location: Hybrid – Bloomington, MN Job Description: • The Principal Data Analyst drives the delivery of high-quality analytic products by prioritizing work, shaping user stories, and ensuring alignment with business objectives. • Acting as the primary liaison to sponsors, the Principal Data Analyst ensures clear communication of goals, trade-offs, and progress. They collaborate with developers, analysts, and engineers in Agile teams to build scalable data solutions, maintain domain expertise, and provide consultative support for strategic decisions. • This role requires demonstrated knowledge of Healthcare, Pharmacy, or PBM (Pharmacy Benefit Management) operations to effectively interpret and apply data insights that support business and clinical objectives. • Key responsibilities include managing the analytic roadmap, planning sprints, validating deliverables, and championing data accuracy, security, and compliance—all while driving adoption and measurable business value. ACCOUNTABILITIES • All team members must champion and model our values of partnership, curiosity, compassion, integrity, and excellence, contributing to a culture of continuous learning. • Acts as a domain expert, partnering with business groups and data engineers to frame problems, model, clean, and integrate data, and determine the best ways to leverage that data to achieve business goals. • Works with business partners to understand and create their user stories, identifying and clarifying opportunities to leverage data analytics for customer or business value. • Independently creates, deploys, monitors, and maintains highly interactive data visualizations and analytic services. • Leads and participates in strategic measurement activities, including Return on Investment (ROI) analyses, Key Performance Indicator (KPI) development, risk assessment and indexing, and domain-specific measurements (e.g., readmission rates). • Ensures data accessibility, accuracy, and quality, and may act as a data steward by contributing to the management of central data stores and metadata. • Provides consultative, data-driven support for product and business strategy development. • Defines, sets up, and executes test cases to validate that analytic and software solutions meet business acceptance criteria. • Communicates solution trade-offs to business partners to frame and influence project decisions. • Leverages internal and external sources to validate data accuracy and benchmark results. • Promotes and champions security and de-identification standards while handling sensitive administrative data (medical and pharmacy claims, clinical data, and other protected organizational data assets). REQUIRED SKILLS / QUALIFICATIONS • Bachelor’s degree in economics, mathematics, business, computer science, data or social science, operations research, statistics, or a related quantitative field. Equivalent education and experience may be considered. Experience in multiple areas is strongly preferred. • Five or more years of direct experience using technical and analytical skills to extract, integrate, interpret, and visualize complex and disparate data sources (certification or training may substitute for years of experience). • Demonstrated expertise using data visualization tools such as Microsoft Power BI or Tableau. • Mastery in storytelling using data. • Expertise in SQL and relational database design. • Strong programming skills using Python, R, or similar languages. • Proven ability to present findings and actionable recommendations effectively. • Highly motivated, self-driven, curious, and creative. • Skilled communicator with the ability to work collaboratively across development teams, end users, and business leaders. • Demonstrated ability to support and complement the work of diverse development and operations teams. CORE SKILLS • Communication & Stakeholder Management: Ability to clearly convey priorities, trade-offs, and progress to sponsors and stakeholders, and translate business needs into actionable user stories. • Build Business Domain Knowledge: Develop a deep understanding of the relevant business area to ensure solutions align with strategic goals. • Prioritization & Decision-Making: Skilled in managing analytic backlogs, setting priorities, and making trade-offs to maximize business value. • Agile & Scrum Practices: Familiarity with Agile methodologies, sprint planning, and collaboration within cross-functional teams. • Technical Awareness: Strong understanding of data systems, analytics tools, and visualization platforms to guide development effectively. • Problem-Solving & Adaptability: Capable of framing complex problems, adapting to changing requirements, and delivering incremental value. • Leadership & Influence: Ability to lead without direct authority, motivate teams, and influence decisions through data-driven insights. • Collaboration: Works effectively with developers, analysts, engineers, and business partners. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS • Knowledge of Healthcare, Pharmacy, or PBM operations. • Exposure to Agile/Scrum methodologies (including tools like JIRA). • Experience using Azure Data Lake, DevOps, Power Automate, or other tools in the Azure suite. • Working knowledge of medical terminology and coding systems (ICD-10, CPT4, DRG, GPI). • Familiarity with statistical methods and techniques (predictive modeling, segmentation, regression, etc.). • Experience with software development, data, and integration architecture. • Experience working with unstructured or semi-structured data. • Experience with pharmacy data. The projected hourly range for this position is $70-75/hr. On-Demand Group (ODG) provides employee benefits which includes healthcare, dental, and vision insurance. ODG is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.