Senior Technical Business Analyst

The Senior Technical Business Analyst is responsible for analyzing business processes and gathering business requirements for initiatives that support Farmer Mac’s strategic objectives. The analyst in this position partners with functional groups within the enterprise to communicate and clarify business needs, contribute to the development of long- and short-term plans, and ensure processes and services are aligned with business needs. The analyst conducts business process analysis, needs assessments, and preliminary cost-versus-benefit assessment; brokers other IT services; and communicates trends and requirements with enterprise and IT staff. The analyst uncovers client requirements via industry-standard, model-driven analysis techniques and documents and manages requirements via approved processes, templates, and tools throughout the software development life cycle. This position also works with business stakeholders to design process improvements, define testing strategies, success criteria, test cases and test data to support and execute Regression and User Acceptance Testing.

incumbent in this position is challenged to develop and maintain effective working relationships with both business stakeholders and IT in a way that demonstrates an understanding of business problems as well as IT strategies, issues, and priorities. This position requires extensive interaction with members of the IT team, including the Enterprise Data Architect, Database Administrator, other Farmer Mac business units, Farmer Mac IT Vendors, and occasionally external stakeholders.

The People You Will Work With

The position will report directly to the Senior Manager - Technology Systems Liaison and will be part of Farmer Mac’s IT team, directly liaising with members of the Farmer Mac IT and various other departments. Occasionally, the position will serve as a liaison with external stakeholders and implementation partners.

Where and When You Will Work

Farmer Mac embraces a Presence with Purpose work environment, which allows for flexibility of work location while providing the opportunity for teams to come together in the office with purpose. The position can be based anywhere in the continental U.S. Farmer Mac headquarters are in Washington, D.C., and has a second location in Johnston, Iowa. Core business hours are Monday through Friday 8:30 am to 5:30 p.m. eastern time. Work outside of these times may be required for planned and unplanned activities to complete time sensitive projects or to attend off-site meetings or events. Periodic travel is expected of this position.

Primary Responsibilities And Duties

• Gather, develop, document, and communicate requirements for new functionalities, reporting, and system enhancements.
• Provide Sr. Technical BA support on current projects for Farmer Mac Operations team(s).
• Engage in data mapping activities, write and execute test scripts (including regression and UAT).
• Collaborate with Operations, working closely with the Operations team to ease the workload on IT by handling BA tasks related to loan servicing.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders and IT management to continually improve operational efficiencies through business process improvements and IT capabilities.
• Collaborate with stakeholders from multiple disciplines to create alignment on how their objectives are enabled through technology solutions.
• Translate requirements into clearly defined and easily understood documents, including executive-level presentations, project charters, use cases, and process flows.
• Assess business processes and suggest areas of improvement for identified inefficiencies and/or potential risks.
• Work with stakeholders to identify required changes or enhancements to existing software.
• Solicit business and stakeholder input to refine project scope to effectively deliver desired business value within program timelines.
• Lead testing efforts by creating initial test plans and conducting initial testing before User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
• Provide guidance on UAT to ensure optimal test coverage.
• Ensure that issues are tracked, reported on, and resolved in a timely manner.
• Assist in the enforcement of project deadlines and schedules.
• Communicate and apply project management standards.
• Lead regular project status and stand-up meetings to facilitate collaboration of cross-functional teams.
• Analyze and effectively communicate technical concepts to a non-technical audience.
• Push creative thinking beyond the boundaries of existing industry practices and stakeholder/colleague mindsets.
• Partner with IT leadership to manage the process of innovative change across the organization.
  
  

Desired Skills And Qualifications

• Demonstrated project management experience (planning, execution, budget from inception to implementation), organizational, problem solving, and analytical skills as they pertain to implementing software and providing operational support.
• Demonstrated knowledge of the software development lifecycle and systems analysis required.
• Takes initiative on projects, working independently with minimal oversight to draft and finalize business requirements.
• Demonstrated loan servicing expertise, ability to apply knowledge of loan servicing concepts, including delinquency and modifications (prior experience with Rockport or similar platforms preferred).
• Demonstrated ability to reach consensus and signoff on requirements gathering deliverables.
• Demonstrated ability to work in Agile environments for software development.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills to make effective presentations and interact effectively in a team setting as well as cross-team and cross-organization setting (involving external business partners and vendors).
• Natural team player, collaborating with peers and project teams to achieve company objectives.
• Demonstrated ability to manage and collaborate with external vendors in the consulting space.
• Proven self-starter with ability to operate with limited supervision.
  
  

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, mathematics, statistics, management information systems or similar discipline; Master’s Degree a plus
• Experience working in the financial services industry
• Experience working with a broad range of technologies and enterprise systems
• Experience working with the Salesforce platform a plus
• Experience in the secondary mortgage industry a plus
• Project Management Professional certification a plus
• Previous Consulting experience.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure DevOps or JIRA a plus
• Experience with project management tools a plus
• Minimum of 7 years of related experience
  
  

Our compensation philosophy is targeted pay positioning relative to peers, our industry, and external markets. Farmer Mac is committed to a compensation program that will enable the organization to attract, motivate, reward, and retain highly skilled and creative talent to maintain sustained long-term performance and achieve the organization’s strategic business objectives. The typical base pay range for this role is $120,000 to $150,000 per year. Compensation will vary based on experience and geographic work location.