Business Analyst SME

Business Analyst SME Location : Jersey City (Work Mode: 3 days/Week) Employment Mode: W2 Visa: No OPT and CPT's We are seeking a highly specialized Subject Matter Expert (SME) and individual contributor to act as the central authority for Security Master and Reference Data across the entire organization. This is not a traditional project-management role; it is a deep technical and functional expertise position. You will be the go-to expert for the front office (Trading, Strats), middle office, and firmwide Risk, Finance, and Regulatory teams, providing critical insights and defining requirements that impact trading decisions, risk calculations, and regulatory compliance. Your deep domain knowledge will be essential in covering the entire universe of financial instruments and their associated reference data. Key Responsibilities Deep Domain Expertise & Consultation: • Act as the ultimate SME and first point of contact for all complex inquiries related to the Security Master and Reference Data, providing authoritative guidance to trading desks, quantitative strategists, and risk modelers. • Define and govern the logical data model for the entire Security Master, encompassing a wide range of asset classes including: • Equities (Common Stock, Preferred Stock, ADRs) • Fixed Income (Government/Sovereign Bonds, Corporate Bonds, Municipal Bonds, Money Market Instruments) • Loans (Syndicated Loans, Bi-Lateral Loans) • Structured Products (ABS, MBS, CMBS, CDOs, CLOs) • Derivatives (Options, Futures, Swaps, Swaptions, Credit Default Swaps (CDS)) • Funding & Financing Products (Repos, Reverse Repos) Listed & OTC Instruments • Provide expert-level analysis and requirements for all associated Reference Data, including: • Issuer Data: Entity hierarchies, legal entity identifiers (LEIs), ultimate parent guarantees. • Ratings Data: Credit ratings from major agencies (S&P, Moody's, Fitch), including issue and issuer ratings. • Index & Benchmark Data: Constituent data, weights, and analytics for indices and ETFs. • Pricing & Valuation Data: Market data sources, contributed prices, and valuation methodologies. Stakeholder Engagement & Influence: • Partner directly with Front Office Trading and Strats to understand their data needs for quantitative models, pricing engines, and trading systems. • Collaborate with Firmwide Risk teams (Market Risk, Credit Risk, Counterparty Risk) to define data requirements for stress testing, capital calculations, and risk aggregation. • Liaise with Regulatory Reporting teams to ensure data integrity for critical regulations (e.g., BCBS 239, MiFID II, SFTR, FRB 2052a). • Work with Technology and Data Architecture teams to translate business needs into scalable, robust data solutions and system enhancements. Product Ownership & Strategic Direction: • Define the product vision and roadmap for the Security Master domain, prioritizing strategic capabilities based on trading innovation, risk management needs, and regulatory mandates. • Author precise, detailed business requirements and user stories that serve as the single source of truth for development teams. • Specify complex data mastering logic, survivorship rules, and cross-referencing across multiple vendor feeds (e.g., Bloomberg, Refinitiv, Markit) and internal systems. Governance & Quality Assurance: • Chair and serve as the key SME in data governance forums, establishing and enforcing global data standards, definitions, and quality rules. • Define Critical Data Elements (CDEs) and the key quality metrics (completeness, accuracy, timeliness) to measure the health of the data domain. • Perform deep-dive data analysis using SQL and other tools to investigate root causes of data issues and prescribe remediation plans.