Business Analyst III (Financial Aid Services Product Management)

National Student Clearinghouse•Herndon, VA

6d•$79,000 - $105,000•Remote

About The Position

By joining the National Student Clearinghouse, you can be sure that the work you do now will help shape the future of education and the workforce in the U.S. As the trusted source for higher education data since 1993, the Clearinghouse is the leading provider of transcript and data exchange services, automated enrollment and degree verifications, learner insights and research, and compliance solutions for schools, businesses, and learners nationwide. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Clearinghouse works with nearly 3,600 postsecondary institutions to meet their compliance needs and with thousands of high schools and districts to provide continuing collegiate enrollment, progression, and completion statistics about their alumni. In addition, the Research Center publications inform policymakers and business leaders about student educational pathways. Using our unique combination of data, analytics, and software to drive our mission, security and privacy is paramount. Join us as we continue to invest in our talent and new advanced technologies to unlock the power of data on behalf of all learners. About the Role: The Specialist III, Business Analysis (a.k.a. Business Analyst III) is a crucial role in fostering the strategic partnership between business and technology. The incumbent is responsible for developing requirements and related business rules for existing and new software solutions in the market. This position is a subject matter expert for one or more services and works closely with business partners and other subject matter experts in the definition, development, testing, training, implementation, and support of functional requirements. Our solution delivery follows the Agile SCRUM process. The Specialist III provides cross organizational support, as needed. Additionally, the analyst runs multiple projects at once, and uses creative and innovative methods for analysis, design, documentation, and tool selection. The ideal incumbent understands and documents integration points and dependencies with other systems and will utilize simple queries to check the status of a service line. Currently, this is a remote-first position, and this position may be required to periodically work on-site at our office and the frequency would depend on the department/division's requirements. Therefore, candidates must either reside within a reasonable distance to commute to our office or be willing to travel to our office in Herndon, when required.

Requirements

Bachelors degree in IT, business, or related field. A combination of education and experience including military service will also be considered.
8 years of total years of professional experience.
3 years of directly related experience in soliciting and defining requirements for mission critical business applications across technology, business and finance.
Experience: Analyzing and interpreting complex data sets to produce clear, targeted, and actionable insights or reports.
Embedding quality controls, validation steps, or audit mechanisms within business processes to support consistent and uninterrupted operations.
Experience with process flows, user persona definition and mapping.
Soliciting, defining, and writing detailed business requirements and user stories based on customer feedback, market research, as well as internal and external stakeholder input.
Gathering and documenting both functional and non-functional requirements, including performance, usability, integration, data, and security needs.
Applying SQL to perform data validation, research, or troubleshooting activities (read/write capability preferred).
Ability to create clear and detailed user stories, use cases, and acceptance criteria, including identification of actors, interactions, and system behaviors.
Proficiency with developing user personas, wireframes, sequence diagrams, data flow diagrams, and current/future state process flows.
Demonstrated proficiency: Working within Agile methodologies (e.g., SCRUM) and applying structured, value based approaches to feature and product evaluation.
Communicating effectively and confidently with stakeholders at all organizational levels, including the ability to translate complex technical concepts into business-friendly language.
Using Microsoft Office Suite and collaboration tools (e.g., Teams, SharePoint, Confluence, or similar platforms).
Excellent written, verbal, interpersonal, and presentation skills, with the ability to facilitate productive discussions and drive consensus across diverse stakeholder groups.
Demonstrates the Clearinghouses core competencies: customer focus, optimizes work processes, communicates effectively, collaborates, and is open and authentic.
Must live within a commutable distance to Herndon, VA or in one of the Clearinghouse's approved States for hiring purposes. Refer to our HR Policies Page, located on our Careers site at https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/careers/human-resource-policies/ , for more details.
Must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. We do not intend to sponsor external applicants for work visas, and may consider sponsorship only if no qualified candidates can be found who are authorized to work without sponsorship.
Must be at least 18 years old.

Nice To Haves

Knowledge of Clearinghouse services and applications.
Experience in Education technology domain including work with Department of Education or Student Information Systems.
Experience with software development management tools (Rally, Jira, Confluence).
Certification: Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or an equivalent certification, strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Demonstrate the Clearinghouse's core competencies: Customer Focus, Optimizes Work Processes, Collaborates, Communicates Effectively, and Be Open and Authentic.
Work closely with the Business Owner to understand the needs of the market/industry and define the scope for projects.
Lead efforts to solicit, review, document, and refine requirements via interviews, workshops, group meetings, and/or existing systems documentation or procedures.
Read and write SQL code and perform complex data analysis tasks.
Within Customer Focus, this competency includes data literacy skills to build customer-centric solutions.
Contribute to the successful on-time, within-budget and in-scope delivery of business initiatives.
Provide LOEs and plans for Business Analyst activities.
Define user personas and develop user stories, use cases with actors and interactions, and UML models, wireframes, sequence diagrams, and data flow diagrams.
Produce As Is and To Be process flow diagrams.
Derive business requirements from use cases in an agile environment.
Create, revise, validate, and maintain business flow maps, business requirements, business rules, user stories, user flows, test plans and acceptance tests.
Define conceptual technical and/or non-functional requirement documents to translate business requirements into technical information that developers can use.
Document and maintain traceability of requirements.
Be able to analyze the impact of new business requirements/user stories on the current application from both a business and technical perspective.
Adapt to changing priorities and procedures.
Lead customer focus groups to gather, analyze, and prioritize business requirements, ensuring alignment with stakeholder needs and strategic objectives.
Work with business owners to drive consensus across multiple stakeholders.
Work with users and QA, assist with the development of test cases based on documented requirements and perform user testing during sprints and as part of formal testing activities.
Collaborate with other business analysts to identify all cross-system interfaces, dependencies and requirements.
Accurately represent the needs of the business owner(s) to software IT development teams and vice versa.
Participate in various agile ceremonies with both technology and business partners to facilitate the understanding, clarification, and implementation of requirements in an Agile development environment.
Accountable for presenting timely, accurate project and product information to all levels of stakeholders at NSC including but not limited to Executives, Senior Managers, the IT Division, and applicable operational staff.
Understand and effectively communicate to project teams and business owners all the data elements utilized by the service.
Create and foster positive and open communication channels between external and internal stakeholders, including customers, Clearinghouse leadership, business and product owners, scrum teams, IT, CDO, and with other business analysts.
Foster a culture of collaboration, teamwork, innovation, and service excellence at the Clearinghouse and help resolve any product or project issues.
Position may be required to perform other duties as required. These essential functions are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the job. Reasonable accommodations will be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.

Benefits

The National Student Clearinghouse provides a robust benefit program designed to help meet the needs of each employee and their family, both now and in the future.
We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as life and disability insurance benefits, for employees and their qualified dependents.
Health care, dependent care, and limited purpose flexible spending accounts, as well as a health savings account with annual employer contributions of $300 for employees and $600 for employees who are enrolled with their spouse and/or dependents, voluntary supplemental health plans for Accident and Hospital Indemnity coverage, and infertility coverage are options available for employees to set aside pre-taxed dollars for certain qualifying expenses.
We offer a very generous 401k matching contribution program with the opportunity to defer pre-tax and Roth contributions, as well as catch-up contributions for those who are eligible!
We are proud to offer a competitive paid leave program consisting of vacation, sick, and personal time, as well as paid holidays, up to 3 weeks of paid parental leave during a 12-month period , and up to 5 days of paid military leave per calendar year .
Vacation time will accrue based on length of service, and new full-time hires can accrue up to 13 days of vacation and up to 10 days of sick time per year.
On an annual basis, new employees may use up to 32 hours of accrued sick time as personal time.
Additionally, the Clearinghouse observes at least 15 paid holidays per year, including company year-end close between Christmas and New Years Holidays.
Another perk is that employees have the option to get reimbursed for basic wholesale company and roadside assistance memberships (e.g., Costco and AAA) and to request a buy back on portions of unused accrued vacation based on tenure and certain other qualifications.
Employees can further their education and professional development by using our Employee Education Assistance Program, which establishes reimbursement for qualified education expenses upon successful completion of the program, and leveraging the enterprise-wide LinkedIn Learning subscription.
There are additional employee benefits too, including but not limited to, mental health with up to eight free therapy sessions for employees and their family members and well-being reward benefits.
With the Clearinghouse being an eligible 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization, employees are eligible for service credit towards the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (PSLF).