Senior Applications Analyst

Senior Applications Analyst

The City of Kirkland's Information Technology Department is seeking to hire a Senior Applications Analyst!

The City of Kirkland is seeking a Senior Application Analyst to support our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. Candidates with hands-on expertise in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, particularly Tyler Technologies Enterprise ERP (Munis) are highly encouraged to apply, as this position will serve as the primary technical and functional support resource for the City's Munis environment. Experience with ERP lifecycle management, integrations, workflows, and database structures will be especially valuable in this role.

Ranked as one of the most livable cities in America, Kirkland is an attractive and inviting place to live, work, and visit. We have big city vision while maintaining a small-town, community feel. If you are a candidate with the desire to join an organization looking to innovate into the future, the City of Kirkland is the place for you! If you ask our employees why they love where they work, they will tell you about the great people, work environment, supportive leadership and City Council, and fearless innovation. We also invest in you! Competitive Wages: We strive to maintain competitive compensation packages and work to provide wages that meet the knowledge, skills, and abilities of our employees. Awesome benefits: The City offers benefits that are unmatched by most other employers. Please click on the benefits tab above to view more details. Childcare Programs: To help address the challenge of reliable childcare, the City of Kirkland has agreements with two local childcare providers that offer discounted rates for our employees at 10 locations within 20 miles of Kirkland. Training and Career Development: The City of Kirkland believes in developing its employees. You will have access to training opportunities designed for career development and advancement based on your position, skills, and interests.

The role of the Senior Applications Analyst is primarily to support Enterprise Business Applications and database systems to ensure usability, availability, and security. The Senior Applications Analyst is responsible for providing systems expertise in the technical implementation, project management, customization, database architecture and administration for assigned City systems and applications, both on on-prem and SaaS. Analyzes business needs, procures, develops, and implements software solutions to meet those needs. They are responsible for the complete COTS system lifecycle including recommendation, purchase, implementation, support, workflow, customization, programming, integration, and upgrades. Develops application customizations, scripts, and reports to manipulate data as required by internal customers. Coordinates assigned technology programs and projects. The role serves as a primary point in data-driven decision making by using business intelligence (BI), reporting tools, data manipulation and analytical techniques to support internal customers and applications. The Senior Applications Analyst also functions as the technology business liaison to the departments they support within the City.

City technical environment is primarily Azure government cloud, Windows OS and SQL Server databases. Special project or program roles may be assigned as needed. May work on cross-functional projects with the other Divisions in the IT Department as related to supporting enterprise applications.

Principal Accountabilities:

• Responsible for providing project management, implementation, application requirements, business process analysis, integration, customization, upgrade, training, maintenance and troubleshooting of assigned major City software applications and associated database systems, including guidance of vendor support organizations as needed in problem resolution or feature enhancement. Manages the technical implementation of assigned new systems.
• Performs system and database administration roles for assigned major City software application systems, including maintenance, database/application security, application functionality, creation and maintenance of application interfaces, creation and maintenance of workflow capabilities, creation of reports, ad hoc queries, complex reports and data manipulation and guidance of vendor work.
• Engages with business owners and stakeholders to establish appropriate governance of the application or system for the vetting and addition of updated or new content, enhancements, new features and functionality as well as upgrades to new version of the software. Gains approval for and maintains guidelines for site design standards.
• Performs database design, client/server application development and web page creation as needed for custom application business needs.
• Designs, develops and tests database scripts, functions, stored procedures and other database-related activities.
• Provides a unified user experience for service-oriented SaaS solutions such as the City's website for customers, both internal and external.
• Provides assistance in the overall operation of the data processing function of the City serving as backup to other Department staff as assigned by the Director.
• Provides technical and consulting support to outside agencies/jurisdictions hosted on City of Kirkland's IT system(s) and works with agencies/jurisdictions hosting applications for the City of Kirkland.
• Acts as a mentor for individuals in the Applications Analyst role.
• Recommends strategic direction for supported systems to the IT Supervisor – Enterprise Applications.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

The work of the Senior Applications Analyst is different than other IT functions as it is responsible for the overall function and accuracy of the various Enterprise Applications that facilitate the City's function. Analyzes business needs and processes, implements, and adheres to city data accuracy standards and procedures, directs business process automation, performs complex system analysis, and helps develop and implement application solutions to meet those needs. The Applications Analyst differs from the Senior Applications Analyst as the latter performs complex, non-routine system administration functions while the Applications Analyst performs standard, routine, and moderately-complex system administration functions. The Senior Applications Analyst is also deemed system owner for mission critical applications (MCAs) hosted by the City, while the Applications Analyst only owns non-mission critical or SaaS applications. However, the Applications Analyst can be a secondary owner or contact for mission critical and City hosted applications.

Essential Functions: Essential functions, as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act, may include any of the following representative duties, knowledge, and skills. This is not a comprehensive listing of all functions and duties performed by incumbents of this class; employees may be assigned duties which are not listed below; reasonable accommodations will be made as required. The job description does not constitute an employment agreement and is subject to change at any time by the employer. Essential duties and responsibilities may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In coordination with other department staff, assists City staff with problems experienced with major software applications and related programs. Provides high-quality, detailed consultation, technical support, and troubleshooting with an emphasis on customer satisfaction. Works in a highly coordinated manner with other divisions in the department in problem resolution.
• Assumes technical system responsibilities for assigned major City applications to ensure high system availability, data integrity, security, performance, ease of use, navigability and accessibility. This includes running and monitoring system processes (after-hours if necessary), establishing system maintenance schedules, developing system administration and troubleshooting documentation, policies and procedures for application governance; directing and completing system upgrades and enhancements; creating, implementing, maintaining and upgrading application interfaces between a variety of systems and ensuring cross-platform functionality; completing needed application server and web server configurations for application functionality.
• Designs, builds, and maintains custom relational databases and interprets and analyzes enterprise relational databases. Develops strategies for database architecture, implementation, maintenance, archive, recovery and security of a database. Regularly checks and repairs database integrity. Must be able to design, develop and manipulate database management systems, data warehouses and multidimensional databases. Responsible for ensuring city business processes and strategic goals are optimized through the use of enterprise data standards.
• Creates and maintains data integration between systems and enhances systems through scripting, customization and/or programming.
• Performs programming of applications and databases to enhance major applications where functionality does not meet business needs and creates and maintains interfaces between major systems using coding, scripting and programming.
• Develops, deploys and customizes business intelligence (BI) and reporting tools and applies analytical techniques and processes to support reporting, tracking application reach and usage, manipulation of data and decision making as required by internal and external customers.
• Assists, facilitates, and/or supports user teams (formal and informal).
• Researches and maintains knowledge of current application, scripting and database technologies to ensure the City's awareness of current technical tools. Assists IT Management in planning for future acquisitions and upgrades to equipment and software.
• Analyzes the application needs of client departments, performs research and recommends products and/or methods for applying technology to address business process and organizational needs. Includes detailed application requirements and business process analysis.
• Serves as liaison with vendor support organizations including selection and implementation of systems, licensing, upgrades, and problem resolution.
• Maintains detailed, up-to-date documentation of major application and database system configurations, management procedures, user and client procedures, problem fixes, vendor support contacts/procedures, customizations and interfaces and disaster recovery procedures.
• Ensures that responsible department staff are adequately trained on the essential procedures and activities of assigned duties to provide adequate coverage in the event of the absence of the incumbent. Ensures that documentation is kept up-to-date for responsible systems.