Lead Data Analyst

Role Summary

URBN's Data Science & Analytics team partners with our brands and shared-service teams to turn data into better decisions, from customer insights to advanced analytical solutions. As we expand our analytics capabilities, we're looking for a Lead Data Analyst to drive complex analytical work, provide technical leadership, and serve as a trusted analytics partner across the business.

You'll initially focus on Inventory Science, partnering with Supply Chain, Merchandising/Planning, Data Scientists, and ML Engineers to improve inventory and fulfillment decisions. Over time, your scope will broaden to support analytical initiatives across URBN's brands and Technology teams, including areas such as marketing, customer analytics, search, and personalization. This is a hands-on technical leadership role with potential to grow into people leadership as the team expands.

This role blends deep SQL and analytical expertise with genuine curiosity about how the business operates. You're comfortable working well beneath the dashboard — reconciling data across systems, tracing outcomes to their root causes, and connecting analytical findings to what's happening in the business. You enjoy tackling ambiguous problems, proactively identifying opportunities, and helping others strengthen their analytical skills.

Role Responsibilities

Data Foundations & Analytical Enablement

• Develop a deep understanding of data across source systems, investigating discrepancies, validating accuracy, and tracing issues to their root causes.
• Build analytical datasets and data models to support advanced analysis, experimentation, and data science initiatives.
• Partner with Data Engineering to define analytical data requirements and address upstream data quality issues.
• Develop measurement frameworks and design experiments, holdouts, and other approaches to evaluate business initiatives and data science solutions.
• Develop dashboards and self-service reporting in Qlik and Looker, and document key metrics, methodologies, and data lineage to ensure consistency and reliability.

Advanced Analytics & Business Partnership

• Lead complex analytical initiatives, translating ambiguous business questions into actionable insights and recommendations.
• Partner with business and Technology stakeholders to identify opportunities, quantify potential impact, and define metrics for success.
• Collaborate with Data Scientists, ML Engineers, and business partners to frame problems, establish analytical requirements, and communicate findings that drive decisions.
• Translate complex analyses into compelling data stories, clearly communicating key insights, business implications, and actionable recommendations to stakeholders.

Technical Leadership & Mentorship

• Serve as a technical lead for advanced analytics work, guiding analytical approaches and ensuring high-quality, defensible results.
• Establish and promote best practices for SQL, code quality, analytical rigor, validation, and documentation.
• Mentor analysts through technical guidance, code reviews, and collaborative problem-solving, helping elevate the team's analytical capabilities.

Initial Focus: Inventory ScienceThe initial focus of this role will be supporting inventory and fulfillment optimization initiatives across URBN's brands, including purchase order splitting, retail store allocation, and order sourcing.

• Size and prioritize opportunities, quantifying current-state costs and potential improvements in dollars, units, service levels, and labor.
• Define and own performance metrics, such as sell-through, fill rate, split shipment rate, and cost-to-serve, and evaluate the impact of new optimization solutions.
• Translate operational and merchandising constraints into analytical requirements and investigate unexpected outcomes to support model development and improvement.

Role Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5+ years of experience in analytics or quantitative roles, with demonstrated ownership of complex analyses that influenced business decisions.
• Advanced SQL skills, including complex queries, performance optimization, and data validation.
• Proficiency in Python for analysis, including pandas and standard analytical libraries.
• Experience developing analytical datasets and data models in a modern data warehouse environment (e.g., Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift).
• Strong analytical problem-solving skills, including statistical analysis, the ability to identify and mitigate potential biases, and independently navigate ambiguous business questions.
• Experience working across source systems and collaborating with Data Engineering to investigate data quality issues.
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical guidance, mentor peers, and promote analytical best practices.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to translate complex findings for both technical and business stakeholders.
• Experience using AI-powered analytical or coding tools with appropriate validation and judgment.
• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative field or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred

• Experience with BI tools such as Qlik or Looker.
• Experience with supply chain, inventory, fulfillment, marketing, or customer analytics.
• Experience with experimental design, A/B testing, or causal inference.
• Experience with version control and collaborative code review.
• Familiarity with AI integrations and workflows, including MCP/connectors and agentic tools.
• Experience in a multi-brand or omnichannel retail environment.

The Perks

URBN offers comprehensive Perks & Benefits to employees. Availability and eligibility to specific benefits may be subject to your location and employment status. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, PTO, generous employee discounts, retirement savings and much more! For additional information visit www.urbn.com/work-with-us/benefits

EEO Statement

URBN celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We are proud to provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, sex (including gender, pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity or expression), religion, creed, age, physical or mental disability, national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship, service in the uniformed services, genetic information, or any other protected characteristic as established by law. We believe strongly in fostering a safe, fair and respectful work environment. To ensure compliance with our non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies, we offer anti-harassment training to managers and employees.