Product Business Systems Analyst

The Product Business Systems Analyst (BSA) is to serve as a strategic partner to WaFd’s product teams, ensuring systems and processes enable seamless roadmap execution by bridging the gap between business needs and technology solutions.

This role involves a solid understanding of the Commercial Banking  products roadmaps and their key results, business requirements, designing and implementing system changes, and ensuring the alignment of technical solutions with strategic business objectives. Specifically, this position’s primary focus will be to partner with our Commercial Lending, Deposits and Treasury product team (including stakeholders, developers, vendor partners, and end-users) to facilitate effective solutions that align with their roadmap and drive business success.

Additionally, this position defines the product specifications for any new products, enhancing the existing products, including compliance, risk, financial, and data/information needs. 

Along with the key functions listed below, this position will be expected to uphold WaFd Bank's value on simply being kind when working alongside colleagues and servicing our clients.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following.  Other duties may be assigned:

• Business Process - Understand, analyze, and improve business processes. Work to align technology solutions with broader business strategies and objectives, often across multiple systems or departments.
• Requirement Gathering and Process Design - Works closely with stakeholders to facilitate and drive the discovery process for gathering detailed business requirements and map out end-to-end processes. Taking those requirements and translating them into functional configurations and/or user stories for further grooming. Analyze current workflows, perform gap analyses, and create process documentation and recommendations for process improvements.
• System Design and Solution Architecture - Involved in high-level system design and often collaborates with solution engineers, and developers to ensure solutions fit within the broader enterprise architecture. Create functional specifications, user stories, or other documentation to guide the development team.
• Cross-functional Collaboration – Collaborates closely with product teams, IT and other suport teams to align system capabilities with roadmap goals and to understand how processes intersect across the organization. Identify integration points, dependencies, and potential impacts across systems. Ensure requirements support WaFd’s compliance, legal, and IT rules. 
• Application Support – Perform system configurations to align with business requirements, including updating workflows, enabling features, and modifying user interfaces, while collaborating with technical teams to manage complex changes.
• Data Analysis and Reporting - Analyze data and metrics that span multiple systems to inform business decisions, and create dashboards or reports to provide insights into business operations.
• Project/Product Support - Partner with project/product managers to ensure timely delivery of project milestones and adherence to timelines.
• Documentation - Create and maintain comprehensive documentation, including business requirements, functional specifications, user stories, and use cases. Create standard business analysis artifacts such as process documents, process flows, business rules, etc. that are  easily understood by business stakeholders.  
• Testing and Quality Assurance - Coordinate and conduct system testing, including developing test cases, executing test scripts, and troubleshooting issues.
• Monthly Business Reviews - Preapre and present a monthly report to Sr. IT Leadership, summarizing the status  of work, key achievements, challenges, and alignment with the product roadmaps.
• Compliance - Adhere to bank policies and procedures designed to comply with federal regulations, including but not limited to the Bank Secrecy Act, USA Patriot Act and OFAC regulations. To that end, ensure timely and accurate preparation of Currency Transaction Reports, Suspicious Activity Reports and other recordkeeping requirements. Complete and pass all assigned eLearning courses and assigned certifications as required. Avoid all real or perceived conflicts of interest and always maintain client privacy and confidentiality.
• Other duties as assigned

Education/Skills/Business Acumen: 

• Complexity: Analyze complex business needs and determine effective solutions within established timelines.
• Decision-Making: Make informed decisions regarding systems requirements and implementations, balancing risks and benefits.
• Scope of Responsibility: Support various business units, requiring a broad understanding of different functions, dependencies, and technologies.
• Innovation: Drive process improvements and innovative solutions that increase efficiency and productivity.
• Accountability: Ensure quality deliverables and adherence to project timelines; responsible for documenting and mitigating potential risks.

Education and Experience

• Required:
  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Systems, Computer Science, or related field.
  • Demonstrated experience with the requirements lifecycle management process from elicitation to solution evaluation.
  • Minimum -5 years in business systems analysis or a related field, with demonstrated experience in complex systems implementations and stakeholder engagement.
  • Software familiarity with Microsoft Office 365 tools, Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence, etc.), reporting and business intelligence software (e.g.: PowerBI).
  • Proficiency with system configurations
• Preferred:
  • Certifications such as Certification of Capability in Business Analysis (CCBA), Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP), Product Ownership Analysis Certification (IIBA-CPOA).
  • Strong understanding of relational databases and/or demonstrated ability to author SQL queries.
  • Demonstrated ability to write, parse, or debug code using general programming knowledge.

Soft Skills

• Ambiguity and Adaptability: Thrives in environments with incomplete information, using critical thinking and resourcefulness to make informed decisions and drive progress.  Adapts quickly to changing priorities nad emerging challenges, remaining solution-oriented and proactive in delivering value.
• Curiosity: Natural curiosity to understand business processes, systems and challenges. Continuously seeks to ask “why” and “what if” questions to uncover underlying issues and opportunities.
• Systems Thinking: Ability to see how parts of a system dit together and how changes in one area affect others.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills to convey technical information to non-technical stakeholders.
• Challenge the status quo: Confidence in managing laterally and up.  Suggest and implement improvements in application configurations and support processes to improve system stability and efficiency.  Question legacy workflows and propose innovative solutions to improve product-aligned processes and enable roadmap scalability.  Ability to spearhead change and challenge the status quo.
• Analytical skills to critically evaluate the information gathered from multiple sources, reconcile conflicts, and decompose high-level information into details.
• Listening skills, understand what people say, probe when appropriate and help them articulate their true needs.
• Interpersonal Skills: Build and maintain effective relationships across various business units and with external vendors.

Technical Skills

• System Analysis and Design: Understanding system architecture, workflows, system integrations, databases, and APIs.
• Data Analysis Tools: Familiarity with SQL, data visualization tools, and reporting software to represent requirements/processes in graphical forms (flow charts, swim lanes, PowerPoint presentations etc.).
• IT Infrastructure: Knowledge of networking, servers, and cloud comcputing environments to understand technical dependencies.
• Project Management Tools: Experience with Agile and traditional project management tools (e.g., JIRA, Confluence, MS Project).
• Modeling Techniques: Knowledge of process modeling and data flow diagrams (e.g., BPMN, UML).
• Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC): Understanding of SDLC phases, with experience in requirements definition, design, development, testing, and implementation.

Business Acumen

• General knowledge of Commercial bank systems, including operating and network systems, with a strong desire to learn more about these systems and other technologies.
• Strategic Thinking: Ability to align system solutions with broader business objectives and product roadmaps.
• Process Optimization: Experience identifying and implementing process improvements that drive business value.
• Customer-Centric Mindset: Anticipate and understand end-user needs, enhancing overall user experience with delivered solutions.

At WaFd Bank you get all of these great benefits!

• Paid time off for vacation, sick days and holidays
• Health insurance
• Stock options
• Bonus programs
• Generous 7% 401(k) employer matching*
• Paid Parental Leave
• Life and AD&D insurance
• Long-term disability
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Employee assistance programs
• Pre-tax health and dependent-care spending plans

WaFd Bank Benefits Summary - Click here for more information

We are committed to Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action. We recruit, hire, train and promote persons in all job titles and ensure that all other personnel actions are administered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, military and/or veteran status, or disability in accordance with Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, and the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974, which require affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity in all aspects of employment. WaFd Bank does not discriminate on the basis of national origin or citizenship status as provided under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, or any other Federal or State legally-protected classes. WaFd Bank is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities to the full extent required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you feel you need a reasonable accommodation pursuant to the ADA, you are encouraged to contact us at 800.324.9375

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