Development Analyst

Job description

Job Description:

An exciting and varied vacancy has arisen within our newly created data function at the heart of the Clothing and Home (C&H) development team. You will play a pivotal role in the cross-functional agile team who design and develop products to facilitate our Clothing and Home transformation strategy. Working alongside a small team of likeminded analysts, you will use advanced analytical techniques to shape product roadmaps during discovery phases, identify and evaluate new opportunities for development and determine measurable outcomes. You will collaborate with business stakeholders, product and technical Teams to understand business problems, identify the key challenges, provide/prototype solutions, and contribute to solution design and development. As a driven self-learner who is keen to take advantage of the training and vast network of expertise available, you will be passionate about supporting innovative thinking and championing a culture of data driven decision making and technical excellence.

M&S is an advocate of flexible working and this role is to be based at our Head Office in Paddington, however you are able to work remotely for one or two days per week. As well as flexibility, we also offer you the opportunity to develop yourself further with our Data Fellowship and other programmes, as well as getting involved in our Hackathons other exciting data events!

Key accountabilities and measures

• Using analytical and statistical techniques, define measurable outcomes that are used to shape and facilitate prioritisation decisions for C&H Products.

• Work closely with stakeholders to fully understand requirements to maintain a backlog of development opportunities.

• Develop early stage prototypes and models, that facilitate our understanding of business problems and shape more systems changes delivered by the Product teams.

• Communicate complex topics to a range of stakeholders with various levels of seniority and technical ability.

• Keep updated with new retail technologies and associated industry developments relating to analytics, data science and technology.

• Represent the development team within the M&S digital and data community. Build relationships, attend events and share best practices to create a thriving analytics environment with teams from around the business.

• Recommendations provided have supported measurable improvements to C&H processes & systems (e.g. availability, operational efficiencies, sales growth etc.).

• Regular analysis and data products are innovative, accurate and delivered.

• Analytical output has influenced new ways of working supporting C&H Transformation.

Key skills

• Experience with one or more programming languages (R/Python preferred)

• Proactive, solution driven, and willing to take on the challenge of solving both technical and business problems

• Is already digitally aware or is willing to get up to speed quickly in understanding the potential of digital ways of working (agile methodology, prototyping, automation, etc.).

• A strong background in a quantitative discipline such as mathematics, physics, engineering, operations research, data science or similar, and a scientific approach to problem-solving (i.e. ability to ask the right questions and design appropriate analyses to answer them).

• Experience working with data, reporting and technology (prior knowledge of SQL and big data technologies desirable)

• Data visualisation: The ability to translate data into clear, understandable insights/stories, preferably with PowerBI.

• Familiar with fundamental statistics and data science concepts (regression, clustering, classification, etc.).