The posting
Role Summary
Avanade India’s Data & AI practice is looking for a Power BI Consultant who can take a reporting requirement from the first conversation with a business user through to a published, refreshing, secured dashboard in production. This is a hands-on build role with real client exposure — you will gather requirements, design the data model, write the DAX, build the visuals and own the solution through go-live.
We are looking for someone who thinks about the model before the chart. Strong DAX and a clean star schema are what make a dashboard fast, accurate and maintainable, and this role is weighted towards that discipline as much as towards visual design. Programming exposure — particularly Python for data analysis — is a welcome addition and will be supported and developed in the role, but strong Power BI craft is what matters most.
Key Responsibilities
- Gather and clarify reporting requirements with business and IT stakeholders — understand the questions being asked, the decisions they support, the underlying data sources and the definitions behind each metric.
- Translate requirements into a solution design: data model, KPI and measure definitions, report structure, navigation, security model and refresh approach.
- Design and build robust Power BI data models — star schema design, fact and dimension tables, relationships and cardinality, date/calendar tables, hierarchies and role-playing dimensions.
- Write and optimise DAX — measures, calculated columns and tables, time intelligence, variables, context transition, and performance tuning of slow measures.
- Build and maintain Power Query (M) transformations — source connections, cleansing, shaping, merges and appends, query folding awareness, parameters and incremental refresh setup.
- Develop KPI dashboards and analytical reports that are visually clear and decision-oriented — appropriate visual selection, consistent formatting, drill-through, bookmarks, tooltips and accessible design.
- Implement row-level security — role design, DAX filter expressions, static and dynamic RLS patterns — and validate it thoroughly before release.
- Configure and manage Power BI Service operations: workspaces, apps, dataset publishing, scheduled refresh, on-premises data gateway configuration, refresh failure troubleshooting and access management.
- Profile, validate and reconcile data against source systems — using SQL, and Python where you have it — to investigate anomalies and support analysis that goes beyond the dashboard.
- Write and tune SQL against source systems and data warehouses to extract, validate and shape data for reporting.
- Test and validate reports — reconciliation against source, measure accuracy checks, performance testing on realistic data volumes, and UAT support with business users.
- Document solutions — data dictionaries, measure definitions, model documentation and handover material — and support end users through training and adoption.
- Follow deployment and governance practice: workspace lifecycle, deployment pipelines, version control, naming standards and dataset certification where applicable.
- Contribute to reusable practice assets — report templates, DAX pattern libraries, theme files and accelerators.
.
Required Skills & Experience
- 3–6 years of hands-on experience building and delivering Power BI solutions in a client or enterprise environment.
- Strong DAX skills — measures, time intelligence, filter and row context, CALCULATE patterns, and the ability to debug and optimise existing DAX.
- Strong Power Query / M skills for data transformation, including handling multiple and messy source systems.
- Solid data modelling capability — dimensional modelling, star schema design, relationship and granularity decisions, and understanding of why model design drives report performance.
- Proven experience designing and building KPI dashboards that business users actually use, with attention to layout, clarity and interaction design.
- Hands-on implementation of row-level security, including dynamic RLS driven by a user/security table.
- Practical experience with Power BI Service administration: workspaces, apps, scheduled refresh, data gateway setup and refresh troubleshooting.
- Experience across the full delivery cycle — requirement gathering, solution design, build, testing, UAT and go-live support — not only report building to a handed-over spec.
- Good SQL — joins, aggregations, window functions and query optimisation basics.
- Ability to engage business stakeholders directly, ask clarifying questions and explain technical constraints in plain language.
- Attention to detail on data accuracy, with the habit of reconciling and validating numbers before they reach a user.
Preferred / Good to Have
- Programming exposure and data analysis in Python — pandas and numpy for data manipulation, basic visualisation and readable analysis scripts. Good to have rather than essential; an interest in building this skill is valued.
- Microsoft certification PL-300 (Power BI Data Analyst) or DP-600 (Fabric Analytics Engineer).
- Exposure to Microsoft Fabric — Lakehouse, Warehouse, Dataflows Gen2, semantic models and Direct Lake.
- Experience with Azure data services — Azure SQL, Synapse, Data Factory or Databricks — feeding Power BI datasets.
- Familiarity with Power BI performance tooling: DAX Studio, Tabular Editor, Performance Analyzer and Best Practice Analyzer.
- Experience with paginated reports (Power BI Report Builder) or Power BI Embedded.
- Exposure to Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate) for embedded and write-back scenarios.
- Awareness of data governance and cataloguing — Microsoft Purview, sensitivity labels and dataset certification.
- Version control and CI/CD experience for Power BI (Git integration, deployment pipelines).
- Domain exposure in one or more of manufacturing, BFSI, consumer goods, energy or healthcare reporting.
.
