Is it a data engineer, an analyst, or both?
An analyst. The AI Operations Analyst answers business questions with existing warehouse tables. When a new question requires a new mart (e.g., 'we need to analyze churn by plan and acquisition channel but that table doesn't exist'), the Analyst spec's the mart and hands off to the AI Data Engineer, who builds it. The division is the same as a well-run human data team: Data Engineers own pipelines and infrastructure; Analysts own questions and answers. Both roles compose well and most founders run both simultaneously.