Business Automation Developer

George Mason University•Fairfax, VA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The primary purpose of the unit is to provide fiscal services to the university, promote financial best practices, form strategic partnerships, establish efficient systems, and pursue continuous improvement. Additionally, its purpose is to create and maintain a sustainable financial framework and strong internal controls to promote sound fiscal management, careful stewardship of university resources, and accountability. IT fosters innovation to support the overall mission of George Mason University (Mason) by employing new methods to deliver financial services and collaborating on process improvements and new initiatives, and it provides accurate and timely financial data to ensure comprehensive reporting, compliance, and analysis to enable strategic decision-making. Within Fiscal Services, the home department for this position is the Fiscal Services Program Office and is responsible for leading projects and programs (or sub-projects/programs) that directly support the goals of Mason and the Fiscal Services Office. The Mason Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) is being established to partner with the Mason Community to automate business processes, provide standards for automation, and share knowledge with employees and students of the university, as well as other constituents. The Business Automation Developer, within the Fiscal Services Program Office, works within the Automation CoE to develop and support low-code technology solutions to improve and transform business processes within Fiscal Services and for the university community. Works with Business Systems Analysts and process owners to define requirements and develop automation solutions in accordance with best practices. Monitors and supports existing automation processes to include root cause analysis for failures and recommendations for corrective actions. As a member of the Automation Center of Excellence, mentors and trains other employees and students in Automation best practices and development.

Requirements

High school diploma or equivalent
Demonstrated experience (generally 2 - 4+ years) implementing, maintaining, and improving low-code process automation solutions (such as RPA, Microsoft Power Platform, etc.)
Demonstrated experience delivering production Robotic Process Automation (RPA) style automations, typically, two or more years of hands-on development or equivalent experience as evidenced by building, deploying, and supporting resilient UI-driven automations with exception handling, and handling automation inputs and outputs using structured files such as CSV and Excel, including validation and controls that support repeatable operations
Documented knowledge of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and software engineering best practices, including alignment to established standards and frameworks, as evidenced by experience across requirements, design, development, testing, deployment, and maintenance, and applying practices such as version control, documentation standards, and change control in an enterprise environment
Documented knowledge of secure automation practices when handling sensitive data, as evidenced by applying least-privilege access, protecting credentials through approved secret handling, and ensuring logging and documentation to avoid exposing regulated or sensitive information
Demonstrated skill partnering with functional, non-technical stakeholders, and translating needs into actionable requirements, as evidenced by conducting stakeholder interviews, mapping current-state and future-state processes, documenting functional requirements, and defining acceptance criteria that support development and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) handoff
Demonstrated skill in coaching, training, or knowledge transfer, as evidenced by mentoring peers, supporting onboarding, developing job aids, or delivering training to increase capability among staff, students, or interns
Demonstrated ability to validate automation functionality and support operational stability, as evidenced by executing unit or functional tests, supporting UAT handoff, triaging defects, and troubleshooting failures using logs, and running results to improve reliability and uptime
Demonstrated ability to produce support-ready documentation including runbooks, as evidenced by maintaining solution documentation and operational guidance such as dependencies, runtime assumptions, restart steps, and troubleshooting guidance
Demonstrated ability to identify and qualify automation opportunities, as evidenced by assessing candidate processes for feasibility and value, proposing future-state workflows, developing basic effort, benefit estimates, and delivering automation solutions aligned to business outcomes
Demonstrated initiative and informal leadership, as evidenced by leading workstreams, coordinating dependencies, identifying risks and mitigations, and driving work from ambiguity to execution without formal supervisory responsibility

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in related field
Developer certifications
Experience with Ellucian Banner
Demonstrated experience creating process automation using UiPath Studio, RPA, and low code/low complexity architecture
Experience with systems analytics, requirements gathering, and end user support
Demonstrated experience delivering production RPA-style automations with three or more years of hands-on development or equivalent experience, as evidenced by owning multiple implementations through release and stabilization, and supporting enhancements and operational improvements post-deployment
Demonstrated experience using UiPath Orchestrator or a comparable automation orchestration platform, as evidenced by configuring schedules, managing runtime settings, using assets and credential stores, and supporting queue-based processing, setting up and configuring the roles and permissions, robot accounts, machine templates (load balancing), and attended and unattended machines
Documented knowledge of Ellucian Banner, as evidenced by experience supporting Banner-based business processes or data, such as integrations, reporting, data structures, or participation in implementations or upgrades
Demonstrated skill using UiPath Studio or a comparable RPA development tool, as evidenced by delivering, debugging, and supporting RPA automations in an operational environment
Demonstrated skill creating repeatable test plans for automation solutions, as evidenced by developing test cases, using controlled test data, performing regression checks, and documenting expected versus actual outcomes for release readiness and stabilization
Demonstrated skill working with APIs for integration and automation enablement, as evidenced by experience using REST or comparable interfaces, handling authentication, validating payloads, and troubleshooting API responses

Responsibilities

Designs, develops, and implements new automation solutions to meet functional and strategic requirements
Works as part of the Automation Center of Excellence (CoE) team to achieve production and operational goals
Works collaboratively with constituent groups including developers, analysts, and users to develop and maintain low-code automation solutions across the institution
Establishes an expertise on automation programming and the CoE software architecture and development framework
Performs basic testing of automations and solutions before handing off to business systems analysts and end users for acceptance testing (UAT)
Works with the CoE team to perfect operational processes and maintain uptime targets for existing automations
Trains and mentors personnel as needed, including Fiscal Services employees, other university employees, and interns to grow knowledge and capability across the institution and in our student body
Participates in outreach to staff to improve identification of and self-support of automation and business process redesign that supports the CoE mission of automation forward processes and systems
Provides and supports opportunities for learning and growth for developer interns in the program
When working with interns, documents meaningful input from them and provides constructive feedback to during and at the conclusion of each development project they are involved in
Completes all assigned administrative duties and ensures all documentation is complete and accurate
Supports the CoE, Fiscal Services Program Office, and the Director of Fiscal Services Programs as needed