Business Analyst Role

OpenDataJobs•Washington, DC

About The Position

Business Analysts make complicated work understandable enough to improve. They learn how a process, service, decision, or system actually operates, identify where needs and constraints collide, and translate that understanding into requirements and business rules a delivery team can build and test. The role can sit close to software, data, operations, policy, or all four. Business Analysts interview users and subject-matter experts, map current and future workflows, document decisions and exceptions, maintain traceability as requirements change, and help validate that the delivered solution solves the problem that started the work. They keep meaning intact as it moves between mission teams and technical teams.

Requirements

A working foundation in requirements elicitation, business process analysis, workflow mapping, or systems analysis.
The ability to translate stakeholder needs into clear requirements, user stories, business rules, and acceptance criteria.
Experience facilitating interviews, workshops, reviews, and decisions across business and technical participants.
The discipline to maintain traceability and support testing, implementation, and change control.
Strong analytical writing, structured problem solving, and attention to accuracy in regulated or mission-critical work.
Curiosity about how work really happens, especially when the official process and the lived process differ.
Ability to listen carefully, ask the question behind the first answer, and write with enough precision that ambiguity becomes a decision instead of a defect.
Enjoy being the bridge without becoming a messenger.
Understand the substance, challenge assumptions on both sides, and help the team reach a shared, testable understanding.

Nice To Haves

Stronger data-analysis skills
Product practices
Testing experience
Knowledge of a particular mission domain

Responsibilities

Interview users and subject-matter experts.
Map current and future workflows.
Document decisions and exceptions.
Maintain traceability as requirements change.
Help validate that the delivered solution solves the problem that started the work.
Create current-state and future-state process maps that reveal decisions, handoffs, delays, exceptions, and control points.
Develop business requirements, functional requirements, user stories, business rules, and acceptance criteria that delivery teams can act on.
Establish requirements traceability that connects mission needs to designs, releases, tests, and implemented outcomes.
Create user acceptance testing plans, scenarios, and evidence that demonstrate whether the solution works as intended.
Produce decision records, data definitions, and operating documentation that remain useful after implementation.