Freight Analyst

Most days mix data extraction, modeling, and the steady cadence of reporting work — pulling shipment data from the TMS or carrier portals, building Excel or BI models on lane-level cost and service, producing carrier scorecards, supporting RFP-cycle analysis. Analytical quality, decision support to operations, and report turnaround shape the visible measures.

The friction often lies in the data-cleanup overhead — transportation data lives across TMS, accounting, and carrier systems, and reconciliation often consumes more time than the actual analysis. Variance across employers is sharp: large shippers run with mature freight-analytics teams and substantial data; smaller shippers and 3PLs run with leaner analytical resources.

This work tends to fit folks who enjoy data work, carry comfort with transportation economics, and have patience for the data-quality challenges that freight datasets present. CSCMP, transportation-analytics credentials, and growing SQL or BI-tool fluency anchor advancement. The trade-off is the cycle-time pressure around procurement events and the modest visibility of analytical work that compounds over years.