Business Analyst

DataStaff is in need of a Business Analyst to fill a long-term contract opportunity with one of our direct clients in Richmond, VA. • This position is on-site Job Description: Our client is seeking a highly experienced Business Analyst to join our Business Analytics and Testing Support Team. This role requires strong stakeholder management skills and the ability to take initiative with minimal supervision. The Business Analyst will serve as the voice of the customer, ensuring that business needs are clearly understood, articulated, and documented. The Business Analyst will work in both Agile (Sprint) and traditional Waterfall methodologies for the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), contributing to ensuring that customers' requirements are met through the development and delivery of requested enhancements. Key Responsibilities: • Act as the voice of the customer, working with IT project team members and business stakeholders to fully understand business processes, pain points, and customer needs. • Develop expertise in customers’ business applications and organizational data management concepts, advocating for the customer throughout the SDLC. • Conduct Root Cause Analysis to identify system gaps and deficiencies that impact the customer and require a business, technical, or blended approach for resolution. • Diagram current processes and propose modifications using process flows (BPMN 2.0), context diagrams, and data flow diagrams to ensure clarity for both technical and non-technical stakeholders. • Discover and document customer-centric requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria with a focus on improving business and technical processes. • Decompose traditional requirements into Agile Epics and Features; create clear and concise user stories that are aligned with customer goals and are easy to implement by technical teams. • Map user stories to technical designs for system modifications, ensuring that solutions meet customer expectations. • Identify and group related user stories into features; document dependencies, ensuring alignment with customer priorities and business processes. • Assist the Product Owner (Business Sponsor) in maintaining the product backlog with a customer-first mindset. • Perform Quality Analyst functions, defining test objectives, test plans, and test cases, while executing tests (including regression testing) to ensure customer satisfaction. • Coordinate, facilitate, and document User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with business stakeholders, ensuring that the customer is at the center of the testing process and keeping Project Managers/Scrum Masters informed of progress. Knowledge and Experience: • Minimum of 10 years of experience delivering business and data analysis artifacts with a customer-focused approach. • 5+ years of experience as an Agile Business Analyst with a strong understanding of Scrum concepts and methodology, including representing the customer during sprint reviews. • Experience organizing and maintaining Product and Sprint backlogs, ensuring prioritization based on customer needs. • Proficiency in translating client and product strategy requirements into Epics, Features, and User Stories, ensuring alignment with customer goals. • Strong data analysis background, organizational data management concepts, and SQL/database experience, particularly in supporting customer-driven solutions. • Proficient in understanding and developing acceptance criteria to ensure test cases meet customers’ needs/acceptance. • Experience with software development applications such as Azure DevOps and/or Jira. • Expertise with Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, Access, Outlook, Visio, PowerPoint, Project Server). • Experience with reporting systems, operational data stores, data warehouses, data lakes, and data marts. • Exceptional written and oral communication skills with a proven ability to advocate for customers while working with a diverse set of peers and stakeholders. • Requirements Elicitation/Documentation/Analysis experience • Systems/Integration/UAT Testing- including planning, execution, resolution, reporting experience Preferred Certifications: • PMP Certification (not required but highly desired) • Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) • PMI - Professional in Business Analysis (PMI-PBA) • PMI - Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) Required Skills: • 8 Years - Experience delivering business and systems analysis artifacts • 8 Years - Proficiency in translating client and product strategy requirements into application requirements and user stories. • 8 Years - Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with a proven ability to work well with a diverse set of peers and customers • 5 Years - Experience as an Agile Business Analyst with a strong understanding of Scrum concepts and methodology. • 5 Years - Proven experience in organizing and maintaining Product and Sprint backlogs. • 5 Years - Defining acceptance criteria and managing the acceptance process with development teams. • 5 Years - Experience with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0 • 5 Years - Advanced SQL experience for complex queries, database profiling, and troubleshooting. This opportunity is available on a corp-to-corp basis or as a W2 position with a competitive benefits package. DataStaff, Inc. offers medical, dental, and vision coverage options as well as paid vacation, sick, and holiday leave. As many of our opportunities are long-term, we also have a 401k program available for employees after 6 months.