Data Engineer — Food Cost Analytics

Food cost represents one of the most significant expenses in our business, influenced by purchasing, preparation, portioning, and menu mix. We are seeking a data-driven engineer to make these costs transparent by identifying margin leaks, quantifying their causes, and delivering code that empowers our teams to address them effectively. This role goes beyond reporting—you will be responsible for the entire process, from diagnosing data issues to deploying solutions in production.

Key Responsibilities
- Analyze purchase orders, vendor invoices, inventory counts, and point-of-sale data to uncover the primary factors driving food cost variances across stores, vendors, items, and weeks.
- Develop and maintain complex queries in MySQL and SQL Server to detect trends related to waste, over-preparation, portion inconsistencies, price fluctuations, and invoice discrepancies.
- Build and support data pipelines, calculations, and corrective measures that underpin our internal food-cost management tools.
- Write and deploy production PHP code within internal applications to integrate food-cost insights directly into the daily workflows used by store and operations teams.
- Identify and troubleshoot data quality issues such as missing items, unit mismatches, duplicate records, or stalled imports, collaborating closely with engineering teams to resolve these challenges.
- Present clear, concise written analyses that explain what the data reveals, the confidence level of findings, and recommended actions.
- Work collaboratively with purchasing, store operations, and leadership teams to translate analytical insights into measurable cost reductions.

Required Qualifications
- Proficient in SQL across MySQL, SQL Server, and BigQuery, including advanced techniques such as joins, aggregations, window functions, and performance optimization on transactional datasets.
- Experience leveraging large language models (LLMs) to enhance productivity and accuracy in data-related tasks.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to deconstruct ambiguous business problems into testable hypotheses and derive actionable insights from data.
- Excellent written communication skills, capable of explaining technical findings clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
- Solid understanding of relational database design and expertise in diagnosing data quality issues such as duplicates, null values, grain mismatches, and unit conversions.
- Comfortable engaging directly with stakeholders to ensure analysis drives meaningful business outcomes.
- Experience in writing and deploying PHP code in production environments is preferred but not mandatory.

Preferred Qualifications
- Familiarity with food-cost management concepts, including theoretical versus actual food cost, yield testing, plate cost, and inventory valuation.
- Experience in vendor invoice reconciliation or purchase order auditing.
- Knowledge of reporting and visualization tools, such as Amazon QuickSight.
- Background in integrating or auditing point-of-sale or ERP data systems, including Brink, SQL Server, and BigQuery.

This role offers the opportunity to impact a critical business metric by combining data engineering, analytics, and software development skills. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to ensure that insights translate into operational improvements and cost savings.