Business Analyst/Product Owner

Job Title: Business Analyst
Location: McLean, VA
Type: Contract To Hire
Work Model: REMOTE
Hours: 40.0
Security Clearance: Must be able to obtain and maintain a Federal or DoD Public Trust
Contact: Crystaldinnocenti@systemone.com

RESPONSIBILITIES
• Define and communicate the product vision, goals, roadmap, and measurable outcomes in alignment with Federal stakeholder priorities, user needs, modernization objectives, and platform strategy.
• Own, order, and continuously refine the product backlog; prioritize features, enablers, defects, and technical work based on business value, user impact, risk, dependencies, compliance needs, and delivery capacity.
• Elicit, analyze, document, and validate business, functional, non-functional, data, reporting, workflow, and integration requirements for iterative delivery.
• Translate business and user needs into product features, epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, business rules, use cases, interface requirements, and operational impact analyses.
• Serve as the day-to-day product decision-maker within delegated authority, clarifying scope, resolving requirement questions, negotiating tradeoffs, and escalating decisions that affect product strategy, funding, policy, or governance.
• Lead product discovery, backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews, demonstrations, and release-planning activities; ensure work is sufficiently defined, prioritized, and ready for delivery.
• Review completed work against acceptance criteria, coordinate stakeholder validation, support user acceptance testing, and recommend acceptance or follow-up actions based on business outcomes and quality expectations.
• Analyze APIs, data exchange patterns, interface dependencies, shared services, system handoffs, and interactions between legacy components and modernized capabilities.
• Identify and manage legacy coexistence considerations, including workflow continuity, system-of-record decisions, duplicate processing paths, data synchronization, testing scenarios, release sequencing, operational readiness, and transition impacts.
• Partner with Scrum Masters, Technical Leads, architects, vendors, and Federal stakeholders to manage cross-team dependencies, align solution approaches, resolve delivery blockers, and coordinate incremental capability releases.
• Track product and delivery measures, gather user feedback, evaluate adoption and outcomes, and use evidence to adjust priorities and drive continuous improvement.
• Maintain product and analysis artifacts, including roadmaps, backlogs, requirements, process flows, traceability matrices, decision logs, release materials, interface coordination documentation, and stakeholder communications.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
• Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding. Candidates with an ACTIVE PUBLIC TRUST or SUITABILITY are preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Minimum of EIGHT (8) years of experience performing business analysis, systems analysis, product ownership, product management, requirements management, agile delivery, technology delivery support, or related IT modernization work.
• Experience supporting platform modernization, system integration, or phased technology delivery efforts, including delivery of new capabilities while legacy systems remain operational.
• Working understanding of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), platform modernization concepts, and incremental transition from legacy architecture to modular, API-enabled, cloud-aligned capabilities.
• Demonstrated ability to facilitate stakeholder discussions, ask probing questions, synthesize input, and build shared understanding across business, technical, and operational audiences.
• Strong knowledge of Agile product delivery, including product discovery, outcome definition, roadmap planning, backlog ordering, refinement, sprint planning, acceptance, release planning, and continuous improvement across multi-team or multi-vendor environments.
• Demonstrated experience owning and prioritizing a product backlog, writing and refining epics and user stories, defining acceptance criteria, facilitating stakeholder decisions, and balancing user value, program priorities, risk, technical constraints, and team capacity.
• Exposure to integration-layer delivery, including APIs, data exchange patterns, interface dependencies, shared services, or handoffs between legacy and modernized capabilities.
• Ability to analyze vendor-delivered capabilities within a common platform architecture and support alignment to shared standards, release readiness criteria, requirements traceability, and governance decisions.
• Ability to identify, track, and escalate legacy coexistence risks, including workflow continuity, data synchronization, testing scope, release sequencing, and operational transition planning.
• Ability to translate technical integration concepts into clear requirements, process flows, user stories, acceptance criteria, risk summaries, decision logs, and stakeholder communications for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to proactively identify, document, escalate, and support resolution of requirements gaps, process conflicts, data issues, testing blockers, and stakeholder decisions in highly regulated, multi-stakeholder environments.
• Strong stakeholder management and collaboration skills with a team-first mindset and solution-oriented approach.
• Demonstrates a continuous improvement mindset - seeks to understand before optimizing processes, relationships, and outcomes.
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to effectively engage stakeholders at all levels in both written and verbal formats.
• Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, with the ability to support alignment between delivery activities, technology roadmaps, platform architecture standards, and modernization priorities.
• Experience with business process, workflow automation, interoperability, and shared service initiatives that improve reuse, reduce duplication, and support incremental capability expansion.
• Self-motivated, adaptable, and able to operate effectively in fast-paced, dynamic environments with minimal supervision.
• Proficiency with requirements management, process modeling, backlog management, collaboration, and documentation tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Visio, Lucidchart, SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.
NICE TO HAVE:
• Experience supporting platform modernization initiatives within enterprise or government environments.
• Experience supporting federal or government IT programs involving legacy system modernization, shared services, interoperability, or phased capability delivery.
• Experience supporting multi-vendor delivery within a common platform architecture, including alignment to shared standards, interface dependencies, release readiness, or governance expectations.
• Familiarity with API-enabled integration layers, data exchange patterns, canonical data models, or interface control processes that support incremental modernization.
• Experience supporting projects with a focus on user experience, workflow simplification, operational continuity, and adoption during modernization transitions.
• Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO), SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager, CBAP, CCBA, PMI-PBA, or similar product ownership, business analysis, systems analysis, agile, or scaled delivery certification preferred.
• Knowledge of emerging AI and Generative AI capabilities and a demonstrated ability to identify opportunities to enhance business analysis processes, documentation standards, and reporting through responsible AI adoption.
• Understanding of change management principles and organizational readiness activities.