Sr Business Systems Analyst

GreatAmerica Financial Services•Cedar Rapids, IA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

GreatAmerica Financial Services is a highly successful entrepreneurial company providing equipment financing to businesses across the United States. Our exemplary customer service, our principle-centered business philosophy and our team-based operating approach are key to our success and growth. We Are Looking to Add a Key Member to Our Platform Delivery Team! The Senior Business Systems Analyst (Sr. BSA) will serve as a key liaison between business stakeholders, IT team members and external vendors translating complex business needs and requirements into functional and technical specifications. The role will analyze business requirements, design technology solutions, optimize system performance, and ensure the successful implementation of enterprise applications. The Sr. BSA will lead IT driven projects, mentor junior analysts, and contribute to the strategic technology roadmap across the enterprise. This role typically performs work for multiple knowledge areas or systems that are more complex and requires strong collaboration across multiple team members in various functional areas. This role will also be responsible for leading and facilitating requirements sessions. A successful candidate will have experience in technology project and delivery management, a demonstrated passion and experience in solving highly complex business problems with software solutions and facilitating collaboration and alignment across all levels of the organization. The candidate shows initiative and exceptional communication skills, with a desire and mindset for growth and self-improvement. As a Senior Business Systems Analyst, you will: Essential Functions Stakeholder and Vendor Management Work closely with internal teams to ensure solutions meet business expectations. Negotiate tradeoffs with business leadership to get work completed within acceptable timeline, risks and resources. Coordinate with third-party vendors for issue resolution, upgrades, and feature deployments. Write RFP proposals for the solicitation of new vendor products or contract service support. Negotiate priorities and ensure service-level agreements are met. Business & Systems Analysis Design system enhancements, integrations, and configurations aligned with business needs. Partner with software developers, architects, and vendors to ensure accurate interpretation of requirements. Lead requirement-gathering workshops, training sessions, and solution demonstrations. Provide detailed drawings, wireframes, use cases, data model and written specifications across all aspects of the technology stack. Support application customization, configuration, and testing activities. Provide mentorship and guidance to junior business systems analysts. Refining & Structuring User Stories Partner with Business Architects and Product Managers to refine the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ for large scale initiatives that can easily translate to technical specifications (the ‘how’). Refine stories ensuring clearly stated acceptance criteria needing validated and/or tested. Identifying System Dependencies & Constraints Conduct gap-analysis and feasibility assessments to support decision-making. Identify and communicate and technical constraints that may impact delivery, lead remediation efforts to reduce or eliminate the constraints. Project Leadership Serve as a project lead for small to medium IT initiatives managed outside of the Product office. Develop agile project plans (epics, features, stories & tasks), timelines, and deliverables; track progress and communicate status. Facilitate cross-functional meetings and ensure alignment across stakeholders with the technical solution. Manage risk, dependencies, and change request throughout the project life cycle. Optimizing System & Data Architecture Provide advanced troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and production support. Monitor system performance and ensure the implementation of enhancements to improve efficiency and reliability. Recommend best practices, process automation, and system governance improvements. Work with Solution and Data Architects and Tech Leads to design scalable solutions. Facilitating Collaboration with Developers & QA Partner with development and QA to document scenarios needing to be tested, functionally and non-functionally, for all initiatives Lead user acceptance testing (UAT), test planning, execution, and defect management for efforts in which they lead. Driving Continuous Improvement Establish and maintain repositories and knowledge bases for the storing, organization and sharing of all levels of system documentation. Promote continuous improvement methodologies and analytical best practices. Mentor, train and promote best practices in system analysis and design methodologies and approaches. Risk Assessment & Impact Analysis Manage risks, dependencies, and change requests throughout the project lifecycle. Manage collaboration and dependencies across multiple efforts impacting the same systems. Communication/Teamwork Attributes Strong communication and collaboration skills when partnering with other software engineers, IT professionals, Product team members, and users/customers we serve, both internal and external to GreatAmerica. Ability to work both independently and in a team-oriented, cross-functional, and collaborative environment. Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment and excels at communicating shifts in prioritization. Ability to adapt to shifting business priorities, demands, and timelines through analytical and problem-solving capabilities. Ability to anticipate needs and proactively solves problems. Driven to Excellence and is motivated to learn; consistently desires to improve knowledge in areas of expertise. Ability to help bring a group to consensus or decision. Strong facilitation and presentation skills. Others Work schedule may vary to meet deadlines, including on-call rotations outside normal business hours. Performs additional duties as required.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Management Information Systems or equivalent.
5+ years of demonstrated experience writing functional and technical design specifications.
Strong understanding of SDLC methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, Hyrid).
Deep understanding of software development using some or all the following: COBOL, RPG, jQuery, Javascript, HTML, JSON .NET, Python, SQL.
2+ years’ experience in requirements and design of cloud platform configuration for technologies such as Salesforce, Workday, SAP, FiServ, Sharepoint, InfoLease and Microsoft Azure.
Proficiency in use of tools such as Visio, Lucidchart, Miro, Confluence, JIRA for creation of requirements, process modeling, wireframes, use case diagrams, and reference architecture types of documentation.
Practical knowledge working with database and query optimization, debugging, QA functions, user defined functions, views and indexes.
Experience in financial services.
Strong experience with the Microsoft Office Suite, Visual Studio Code (or similar text editor), JIRA, and ServiceNow.
Experience with technical documentation tooling such as Git technologies (GitHub or Azure DevOps).
Experience with business case analysis and modeling using Excel or comparable technologies.

Responsibilities

Stakeholder and Vendor Management Work closely with internal teams to ensure solutions meet business expectations.
Negotiate tradeoffs with business leadership to get work completed within acceptable timeline, risks and resources.
Coordinate with third-party vendors for issue resolution, upgrades, and feature deployments.
Write RFP proposals for the solicitation of new vendor products or contract service support.
Negotiate priorities and ensure service-level agreements are met.
Business & Systems Analysis Design system enhancements, integrations, and configurations aligned with business needs.
Partner with software developers, architects, and vendors to ensure accurate interpretation of requirements.
Lead requirement-gathering workshops, training sessions, and solution demonstrations.
Provide detailed drawings, wireframes, use cases, data model and written specifications across all aspects of the technology stack.
Support application customization, configuration, and testing activities.
Provide mentorship and guidance to junior business systems analysts.
Refining & Structuring User Stories Partner with Business Architects and Product Managers to refine the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ for large scale initiatives that can easily translate to technical specifications (the ‘how’).
Refine stories ensuring clearly stated acceptance criteria needing validated and/or tested.
Identifying System Dependencies & Constraints Conduct gap-analysis and feasibility assessments to support decision-making.
Identify and communicate and technical constraints that may impact delivery, lead remediation efforts to reduce or eliminate the constraints.
Project Leadership Serve as a project lead for small to medium IT initiatives managed outside of the Product office.
Develop agile project plans (epics, features, stories & tasks), timelines, and deliverables; track progress and communicate status.
Facilitate cross-functional meetings and ensure alignment across stakeholders with the technical solution.
Manage risk, dependencies, and change request throughout the project life cycle.
Optimizing System & Data Architecture Provide advanced troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and production support.
Monitor system performance and ensure the implementation of enhancements to improve efficiency and reliability.
Recommend best practices, process automation, and system governance improvements.
Work with Solution and Data Architects and Tech Leads to design scalable solutions.
Facilitating Collaboration with Developers & QA Partner with development and QA to document scenarios needing to be tested, functionally and non-functionally, for all initiatives
Lead user acceptance testing (UAT), test planning, execution, and defect management for efforts in which they lead.
Driving Continuous Improvement Establish and maintain repositories and knowledge bases for the storing, organization and sharing of all levels of system documentation.
Promote continuous improvement methodologies and analytical best practices.
Mentor, train and promote best practices in system analysis and design methodologies and approaches.
Risk Assessment & Impact Analysis Manage risks, dependencies, and change requests throughout the project lifecycle.
Manage collaboration and dependencies across multiple efforts impacting the same systems.
Communication/Teamwork Attributes Strong communication and collaboration skills when partnering with other software engineers, IT professionals, Product team members, and users/customers we serve, both internal and external to GreatAmerica.
Ability to work both independently and in a team-oriented, cross-functional, and collaborative environment.
Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment and excels at communicating shifts in prioritization.
Ability to adapt to shifting business priorities, demands, and timelines through analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
Ability to anticipate needs and proactively solves problems.
Driven to Excellence and is motivated to learn; consistently desires to improve knowledge in areas of expertise.
Ability to help bring a group to consensus or decision.
Strong facilitation and presentation skills.
Others Work schedule may vary to meet deadlines, including on-call rotations outside normal business hours.
Performs additional duties as required.

Benefits

Competitive Compensation
Monthly Bonuses for Eligible Employees
401(k) and Company Match
Annual Profit Sharing
Paid Time Off
Paid Vacation - starting at 80 hours annually for employees in their first year of service.
Paid Sick Days - Ten (10) per year with a conversion option for unused time.
Ten (10) Paid Holidays per year
Gym Reimbursement
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Short-Term and Long Term Disability
Company Paid Life Insurance
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
Health Savings Accounts (HSA)
Employee Assistance Program
Parental Leave
Tuition Assistance
Networking Opportunities
Leadership Development Opportunities
Paid Parking
Service Awards
Hybrid work arrangements
Business casual environment
A strong organizational culture focused on our greatest asset: you!