Lead Business Analyst (Project Assistant)

Lead Business Analyst

Duties Description

The New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC) is the state's student financial aid agency, responsible for centrally administering New York's major college aid programs. It oversees grants, scholarships, loan-forgiveness programs, and related services including flagship programs like the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), the Excelsior Scholarship, and other State scholarships. HESC awards nearly $1 billion in financial aid to more than 330,000 students each year.

As a member of the Innovation and Transformation Team, this position will serve as a lead functional analyst and manager. The incumbent will be responsible for overseeing complex system initiatives, guiding business analysis activities across projects, and developing staff to ensure consistent, high-quality analytical practices. The Lead Business Analyst will play a key role in aligning business needs with agency modernization efforts while fostering team capability and operational excellence. Duties include, but are not limited to:

• Manage a team of Business Analysts and QA Testers, ensure all business analysis and testing documentations are developed, reviewed, and updated adhering to established standards and acceptable forms.
• Participate in the development and management of project plans and schedules including identifying and scheduling project deliverables, milestones and required tasks.
• Design, develop, and maintain standards and operating procedures for the Business Analysis and QA Tester roles ensuring compliance with established standards and procedures.
• Identify and monitor project risks and issues, develop mitigation plans and make adjustments as necessary for quality content and timely delivery of project deliverables.
• Analyze and review flow charts, process models and requirements for the "to-be" state of the Financial Aid System (FAS). Work with SME's and Business owners on requirements sign off.
• Coordinate and oversee requirement traceability and defect management process with the vendor to ensure all issues are addressed and resolved timely.
• Manage, develop, and maintain a product backlog with a continuous, collaborative process for gathering, refining, prioritizing, and organizing user stories, features, and bugs to drive product value.
• Develop and review comprehensive testing plans; monitor testing, evaluate, and confirm results are consistent with the system and business process specifications.
• Work directly with program area to understand their needs and expectations and with FAS Modernization vendor to prioritize system requirements and ensure all requirements are clearly documented and testable.
• Proactively analyze the impact of any Grants and Scholarships program changes and communicate known changes to Innovation and Transformation team to facilitate appropriate updates to the system.
• Work with FAS Modernization team and coordinate technology needs interfacing with other entities, NYS agencies, including DTF, SED, OCFS and ITS.
• Monitor ticketing system, prioritize and assign tickets submitted for issues and enhancement requests in collaboration with program area.
• Report on-going progress to Assistant Director and Director and escalate/resolve problems and identified risks as needed.
• Perform wide range of supervisory duties managing both State and Consultant staff. Duties include, but are not limited to: assigning and prioritizing workload across projects, conducting regular meeting to monitor progress and provide coaching, developing staff through mentoring, cross-training, and stretch assignments, conducting performance evaluations and contributing to professional development planning, identifying skill gaps and recommending training opportunities, and establishing/reinforcing standards for documentation quality and analytical rigor.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

NOTE: HESC's business hours require working between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

Minimum Qualifications

Seven years of business analysis experience, where at least 50 percent or more of your duties included experience in at least three of the five knowledge areas below:

• Using recognized business analysis methodologies to elicit requirements from business users as the foundation for the solution to the organization's business needs;
• Describing in a comprehensive written document (e.g. business case, fit-gap analysis document, or functional specification) what the system, process, or product/service must do to fulfill the business requirement(s);
• Using recognized business analysis methodologies (e.g. business case, fit-gap analysis, or functional designs) to design solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the business processes;
• Documenting, communicating, and validating requirements throughout the system, process, or product/service development lifecycle for all changes to processes that would enable the organization to achieve its goals;
• Developing test scenarios, scripts, and data; reviewing test results; and assessing the implementation of appropriate solutions to ensure they perform to the required specifications and achieve the design capabilities.

OR

An Associate's Degree and six years of the required experience as described above.

OR

A Bachelor's Degree and four years of the required experience as described above.

Preferred Qualifications

A customer-service focus, including:

• Essential soft skills to liaise and build trusted relationships with team members at all levels of the organization and HESC customers.
• Ability to authentically build trusted relationships and maintain a positive work environment.

A proactive mindset interested in continuous improvement

Ability to translate complex policy or regulatory requirements into system specifications

Demonstrated ability to supervise, mentor, and evaluate staff

Experience supporting large-scale IT modernization or system replacement initiatives

Business Analysis Certification

Scrum or Product Owner Certification

Experience in Agile environments focusing on user story creation, product backlog grooming, and stakeholder collaboration

Additional Comments

Telecommuting Information:

Initially positions work full-time in the office and a hybrid telecommuting schedule of up to 40% remote work can be discussed with the hiring manager during the interview.

Benefits of Working for New York State

NYS is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits of Working for NYS

Generous benefits package, worth 65% of salary, including:

• Holiday & Paid Time Off
• Health Care Benefits
• Additional Benefits

PSLF: The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program allows public service employees to have the remaining balance on direct loans forgiven after 120 qualifying payments are made under an accepted repayment plan while working full-time for an eligible employer. New York State is an eligible employer. More information is available at