Senior Functional Analyst

Role Description

Seeking a highly motivated and self-directed professional to fill an opening for a Senior Functional Analyst role that will be responsible for leading the capture of business requirements for software development teams. This role involves close collaboration with business users, IT teams, and leadership to elaborate and document requirements and manage requirements in an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool. The ideal candidate has a strong background in software development and Agile / SAFe methodologies.

Job Responsibilities:

• Perform Agile requirements management activities for a product team; analyze user needs to determine functional, cross-functional, and technical requirements.
• Conduct user interviews, lead and facilitate sessions, and develop business process models and formal specifications.
• Gather and document business, functional, technical & non-technical requirements with customers, team members, stakeholder users, and other contractors.
• Elaborate user stories and decompose stories into backlog items, determining acceptance criteria.
• Use an Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool (JIRA) for Requirements Management, Testing, and Defect Management to create and manage requirements, Epics, Sub-epics, and User Stories.
• Collect, track, and monitor system and business requirements.
• Validate requirements and integration.
• Conduct backlog refinement sessions.
• Coordinate with Systems Engineers to assess the impact on technical solutions.
• Manage and coordinate requirements for various projects.
• Write and deliver project documents to clients.
• Identify and manage risks and issues that impact the project's progress and outcome.
• Develop and maintain scheduled project/product backlog(s).
• Own and manage requirements change control.
• Develop Change Requests per established policies and procedures.
• Facilitate accurate configuration management for project-related artifacts.
• Identify, document, verify, and track traceability amongst requirements, test cases, and potential risks and impediments.
• Collect, analyze, manage, and report key Program and Product Team execution status and metrics across all aspects of the Agile product development lifecycle using SAFe.
• Perform analysis to identify required tasks and their interrelationships to establish well-documented stories.
• Become a product functional SME.
• Lead and mentor junior analysts in accordance with the strategy and direction established by the Team Lead.
• Establish strong relationships with product and business owners.
• Support the development team as needed to help everyone understand the requirements' details.
• Follow agile methodology (Scrum) and deliver requirements/specifications for Sprint teams.
• Remove impediments for team members to achieve the successful completion of Sprints.
• Provide clear qualitative and quantitative information to teams and stakeholders.
• Support change control processes established to monitor and control project scope.

Qualifications

• Solid oral and written communication skills, with demonstrated ability to communicate complex technical topics to the customer, management, and non-technical audiences.
• Attention to detail and excellent customer service.
• Highly motivated and analytical; proven problem-solving abilities.
• Ability to take initiative.
• Ability and enthusiasm for working in a fast-paced environment.
• Willingness and enthusiasm to learn new skills, new client environments, and grow domain expertise.
• Ability to learn quickly.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to conduct independent research to lead or support the resolution of complex questions and issues.
• Advanced use of MS Office Suite, including strong Excel skills.
• Excellent analytical skills, the ability to integrate information from multiple sources to execute effectively and efficiently in a dynamic environment.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team setting.
• Experience working at the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Experience working in an Agile environment is preferred.
• Expertise with Jira tools.
• Working knowledge of VA's VIP agile process is highly desired.
• VA SQA Testing experience is highly desired.
• Experience in large, agile software development or data integration projects.
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or Professional Scrum Master (PSM) is a plus.
• Must have experience working with customers, users, and project leads in analyzing, designing, implementing, and supporting a wide variety of IT business systems covering many diverse applications, such as healthcare and financial systems.
• Fully understands the process to elicit customer / end user requirements in a software application lifecycle environment.
• Strong experience in requirements elaboration and acceptance criteria development.
• Experience working in a SAFe Agile environment.
• Experience working for a Federal Health Agency (VA, DHA, HHS, etc.) strongly preferred.
• Healthcare billing and claims processing application knowledge is strongly preferred.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Resident.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust security clearance.

Required Education and Experience

• Master's degree in engineering, or related scientific or technical discipline, and ten (10) years of experience.
• 10 years of additional relevant experience may be substituted for education.