Principal, Data Analytics & Automation

Luna Innovations•Blacksburg, VA

1d•$160,000 - $180,000•Hybrid

About The Position

This hands-on technical leadership role builds and owns Luna’s data, business intelligence, and automation capabilities. It establishes the trusted data and reporting foundation leadership needs to run the business and designs automation and AI solutions that improve scale, efficiency, and decision-making. The role also supports critical operating processes, including commissions, forecasting, procurement planning, S&OP, and executive reporting. Success requires a combination of business judgment, analytical leadership, and hands-on technical ability to maintain today’s business-critical solutions while building a scalable foundation for the future. Initial priorities will focus on ensuring continuity of existing analytical solutions, institutionalizing their ownership and documentation, and establishing a phased roadmap for Luna’s future data and automation capabilities.

Requirements

Strong business or sales operations knowledge, including sales processes, compensation, quotas, forecasting, or S&OP; able to recognize questionable results and trace issues to their source.
Demonstrated ability to translate business needs into meaningful KPIs, analytical solutions, and executive-ready insights and recommendations.
Demonstrated curiosity and active exploration of AI technologies, with hands-on experience integrating AI-enabled tools or workflows to improve productivity, analysis, or problem-solving.
Strong Python development experience including the ability to understand, troubleshoot, enhance, test, document, and maintain existing production applications, data pipelines, and integrations
Strong SQL and data-querying skills, including experience with SOQL, SuiteQL, and accessing enterprise data through saved searches, APIs, or comparable methods.
Experience building reliable integrations, including authentication, error handling, monitoring, data reconciliation, and access controls.
Experience with business intelligence and visualization tools such as Tableau, Power BI, etc. platforms.
Knowledge of data governance and scalable cloud data architecture, including consistent data definitions, documentation, and integration patterns, and analytical platforms.
Hands-on experience building governed AI-enabled workflows using OpenAI, Claude, or comparable technologies, including structured outputs, tool integration, validation, and human oversight.

Nice To Haves

7+ yearsof progressive experience in business intelligence, analytics engineering, data automation, or a related field, including responsibility for business-critical analytical solutions.
Experience managing a sales commission cycle from source data validation through calculation, exception resolution, approval, and audit support.
Experience with manufacturing or supply chain processes, including BOMs, MRP, inventory planning, lead times, or S&OP.
Experience with the NetSuite data model, including SuiteQL, saved searches, or SuiteTalk APIs.
Experience with Salesforce data, reporting structures, or integrations.
Experience with Celigo or another integration or ETL platform.
Experience evaluating or implementing a cloud-based data warehouse or comparable analytical data platform.
Experience designing multi-step AI-enabled workflows or agent-based automation.

Responsibilities

Own the OCT BU business intelligence function, including dashboards, reports, and metrics that provide leadership with a consistent and accurate view of business performance.
Manage the weekly, monthly, and quarterly reporting cadence covering bookings, billings, backlog, forecast, pipeline health, and operational KPIs.
Design and implement an automated Bookings, Billings, and Backlog reporting process using Salesforce and NetSuite data, replacing the current manual executive reporting process.
Partner with functional leaders to define and align KPIs and business metrics, reconcile data discrepancies, and maintain consistent reporting and a reliable source of truth across functions.
Produce ad hoc analyses and executive-ready summaries that translate data into insights, decisions, and actions.
Build organizational capability through self-service analytics, mentoring, knowledge sharing, and the development of data and reporting best practices.
Assess Luna’s analytical data architecture and develop a scalable roadmap; build the business case for the recommended approach and lead or support implementation.
Define the data governance framework and common business definitions needed to support trusted reporting, self-service analytics, and reliable automation.
Identify, prioritize, and implement practical AI and automation opportunities that improve productivity, decision-making, operational performance, or customer experience.
Design and build automated workflows and AI-enabled solutions for high-value manual reporting and operational processes.
Establish appropriate governance for AI and automation, including security, data privacy, access, cost, output validation, human oversight, documentation, and ongoing support.
Build organizational capability in data and analytics by mentoring team members, sharing technical knowledge, establishing best practices, and enabling others to confidently use and support Luna’s data, reporting, and automation solutions.
Provide data, analysis, and automation supporting executive reporting, forecasting, quota planning, territory and capacity analysis, compensation analytics, procurement planning, and commissions.
Own the technical integrity, calculation logic, controls, and continued enhancement of Luna’s commission solution; partner with Sales Operations and Finance on cycle execution, exception resolution, approvals, and audit requirements.
Partner with Sales and Finance on annual quota development, territory and capacity analysis, midyear adjustments, and compensation analytics.
Establish sustainable institutional ownership of analytical solutions through source control, documentation, testing, monitoring, change control, backup procedures, and defined support handoffs.
Govern the OCT Business Operations data environment, including SharePoint-based reporting outputs and documentation, while supporting the transition to a scalable enterprise data platform.