Business Systems Analyst — Data Governance & Operational Systems
Nelnet Business Services (NBS), a division of Nelnet, Inc., provides payment technology and education services to more than 1,200 higher education institutions, nearly 12,000 K-12 schools, and millions of individual students, families, and supporters across the globe. Our culture of service enables us to form long-lasting and trusted partnerships, while our focus on creativity and innovative solutions empowers our customer communities to thrive.
The Business Systems Analyst - Data Governance & Operational Systems connects business requirements to technical delivery and data integrity across the organization's operational systems portfolio, including its CRM platform. This role leads discovery workshops, authors testable user stories, and owns requirements through delivery - while simultaneously defining and enforcing the data standards, governance rules, and stewardship processes that keep production data reliable. The analyst serves as data steward for assigned domains, builds and maintains the data dictionary, and validates data readiness before every system go-live.JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
·Lead discovery workshops with business stakeholders to map current-state processes, surface pain points, and define future-state requirements with enough specificity to build from.
·Author user stories and acceptance criteria sufficient for a developer to implement and a QA analyst to test, explicitly accounting for real data conditions including quality issues, missing fields, and regulatory obligations.
·Document end-to-end workflow designs tracing each process step to the data it creates, reads, or modifies; identify and communicate downstream system impacts when operational workflows change.
·Define and enforce data standards, field naming conventions, and domain ownership policies for all systems in scope - actively maintained and auditable, not parked in a document.
·Identify and document regulatory and compliance data obligations - do-not-contact flags, consent records, opt-out status, and similar fields - and ensure each is represented in the data model, assigned an owner, and validated before go-live.
·Own the data dictionary for assigned domains: field definitions, acceptable values, lineage, stewards, and compliance classification.
·Validate data readiness before system go-live using pre-migration profiling, field-level quality checks, and defined pass/fail acceptance criteria; partner with the Data Migration Specialist to enforce cutover standards.
·Participate in the Data Governance Council and cross-functional working groups, contributing operational domain expertise to enterprise-wide data standards discussions.
·Serve as the business systems analyst for the CRM platform (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or equivalent) - gathering and prioritizing requirements, validating configuration and data-model changes, and coordinating UAT with CRM administrators and business owners.
**Pay Range for this position - $85,000 - $110,000
EDUCATION
Required: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent work experience.
Preferred: Professional certification in business analysis or data management (CBAP, PMI-PBA, CDMP, or equivalent).
EXPERIENCE
Required:
- 4+ years in a business analyst, business systems analyst, or data analyst role in an operational or technology delivery environment.
- Proven, hands-on data governance experience - you can name the program, the tooling, the metrics, and what you personally owned.
- Demonstrated ability to write requirements clear enough for a developer to build from and an end user to test against without assistance.
- Experience validating data readiness before system go-live, including pre-migration data profiling, field-level quality checks, and defined pass/fail acceptance criteria.
- Demonstrated ability to identify regulatory and compliance data obligations and translate them into governance rules, field-level standards, and schema requirements before a system goes live.
- Hands-on CRM platform experience (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or equivalent) - required for current project work.
Preferred:
- Experience with data governance frameworks (DAMA-DMBOK, DCAM) or tooling (Atlan, Collibra, Alation, DataHub, Microsoft Purview).
- SQL proficiency for data profiling, validation queries, and quality analysis.
COMPETENCIES/SKILLS
- Requirements engineering - writes clear, testable user stories and acceptance criteria that developers can build from and users can validate without assistance.
- Data governance practice - defines standards, enforces rules, stewards data domains, and maintains an active data dictionary with measurable quality thresholds.
- Regulatory and compliance awareness - identifies do-not-contact, consent, and opt-out obligations and operationalizes them as governance requirements and schema standards before go-live.
- Cross-system analytical thinking - traces data across operational and enterprise systems, identifies integration impacts, and proactively surfaces configuration or quality risks before they reach development.
- Stakeholder facilitation - leads workshops with senior business stakeholders, drives to decisions, and translates outcomes into actionable, traceable requirements.
- CRM platform fluency - navigates CRM data models and configuration (Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or equivalent) to translate business requirements into system changes and validate downstream data impacts.
Our benefits package includes medical, dental, vision, HSA and FSA, generous earned time off, 401K/student loan repayment, life insurance & AD&D insurance, employee assistance program, employee stock purchase program, tuition reimbursement, performance-based incentive pay, short- and long-term disability, and a robust wellness program. Click here to learn more about our benefits: Benefits & Perks - Nelnet Inc
Nelnet is committed to providing a welcoming and respectful workplace where all associates have the opportunity to succeed. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we ensure that all qualified applicants are considered for employment. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion/creed, national origin, gender, sex, marital status, age, disability, use of a guide dog or service animal, sexual orientation, military/veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law. We value the unique contributions of every team member and believe that a positive work environment benefits everyone.
Qualified individuals with disabilities who require reasonable accommodations in order to apply or compete for positions at Nelnet may request such accommodations by contacting Corporate Recruiting at 402-486-5725 or [email protected].
Nelnet is a Drug Free and Tobacco Free Workplace.
Use of Artificial Intelligence in Hiring
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