Senior Business Analyst

StructureIt is a growing software consultancy in the capital markets, with offices in the UK, South Africa, Mauritius, India and New Zealand. We are trusted partners that help our customers in the Commercial Real Estate and Credit Markets leverage technology to unlock value throughout their business. Our mission is to deliver high-quality and robust software that quickly solves customer pain points while keeping them in control throughout the engagement. 

Main focus of the role

We are looking for a self-starting Senior Business Analyst. You are the link between the client and the people who build the software. You take a business problem the client cannot fully articulate yet, and you turn it into something a development team can build and a tester can verify. The work spans business and systems analysis, delivery management and client relationship management.

From the first client meeting through to the support of what you helped deliver, you will be involved in every part of the solution. The role is based in South Africa, in Johannesburg, Cape Town or remote. You will report to a Portfolio Head and work with distributed development teams in London, New Zealand, India and the US. Expect to work on more than one engagement, and expect the mix to change as our client work changes.

You will also use AI every day. Our analysts work with Claude and ChatGPT to draft specifications, interrogate data, model processes and challenge their own thinking. We work within an approved toolset, and you stay accountable for everything that carries your name. We expect you to arrive able to do this well, and to be straight about where the model helped and where it was wrong.

What you’ll do

The work falls into five areas. The first three take most of your time.

• Understand the problem
  • Run client conversations that get past the stated request to the actual need
  • Understand the applications you work on, both from a technical and a business perspective
  • Interrogate complex data sets rather than taking a description of them on trust
• Define the solution
  • Define specifications based on business analysis and client requirements
  • Identify and document use cases, user stories, user interface design and process flow
  • Design and document data models and system integrations
  • Define solution options, assess the value of each and recommend the one that fits
  • Work closely with development teams to shape the solution rather than handing it over
• Drive delivery
  • Own the requirement backlog and the order it is worked in, agreed with the client
  • Maintain the delivery roadmap on the client’s behalf and keep it honest as the work changes
  • Lead stand-ups, retrospectives and the conversations that keep a team aligned
  • Assess the impact of proposed requirement changes, including risks, data impacts, cross-system dependencies and compliance implications, and gain approval before they land
  • Ensure timely and accurate flows of information between all stakeholders, and surface the gaps before they become rework
  • Provide the functional context the team needs when an incident has to be resolved
• Improve what exists
  • Identify opportunities to improve features and make the case for them
  • Work closely with clients to identify problems and features
  • Bring the analysis patterns that worked back to the wider team, and say plainly which ones did not
• Help others grow
  • Contribute to growing other analysts through coaching, mentoring and feedback they can act on
  • Scope and estimate analysis work on complex projects, and make decisions that support project profitability
  • Contribute to the standards for responsible AI use in analysis work, covering governance, compliance, auditability and traceability
  • Help build the team’s capability in AI-assisted analysis

To fly in your role, you’ll need

• Excellent written and spoken communication. You will write documents that senior client stakeholders read and developers build from
• Experience as a lead analyst on a project from project inception to delivery
• A track record of running several projects at the same time without dropping any of them
• Experience as part of software development teams within the financial sector
• A minimum of five years working experience in the financial industry, or one closely related. Commercial Real Estate, Credit Markets or Insurance experience is an advantage
• Technical understanding of complex data sets, with the ability to interrogate them
• A strong grasp of software architectural concepts
• Working knowledge of Jira and Confluence. Most of what you write will be read in Confluence
• Experience coaching or mentoring other analysts
• Experience scoping and estimating analysis work, and an understanding of how project economics work
• Comfortable in an Agile delivery team, and able to lead its ceremonies
• Daily working experience with at least one frontier AI assistant, such as Claude or ChatGPT
• The judgment to recognise when a model answer is wrong, and the habit of verifying before it reaches a client
• Comfort turning a messy client conversation into structured input a model can work with
• A view on what responsible AI use looks like in analysis work, and the willingness to help shape that standard for others
• Willingness to work in an agentic delivery model, where parts of the analysis and documentation workflow are automated
• The confidence to tell a client something they do not want to hear, early

We assess candidates against our Senior Business Analyst competency framework, which covers analysis, domain knowledge, problem solving and ownership, communication and collaboration, leadership and mentorship, stakeholder management, technology, and commercial management.

Benefits

• Working
  • Fully remote working / or from the office with daily lunch
  • Flexible working hours
  • High-spec Dell laptop
  • Money towards a keyboard of your choice, that is yours to keep
  • WFH Financial Assistance of up to R10,000 for office-related purchases, repayable over 6 months
• Insurance - fully paid on top of, not out of your salary
  • Discovery Classic Saver medical aid with Vitality, plus Stratum Gap Cover, for you, your partner and up to three children
  • Life cover through Simply at two times your annual salary
  • Occupational disability cover at one times your annual salary
  • Family funeral cover of R40,000
• Pay
  • Market rate or above as a base salary, with the other benefits listed here over and above it
  • A 13th cheque at your annual review when you are performing, and a multiple of it when you are performing above expectation
  • Salary increases tracked to published inflation for your country of work
  • A referral bonus when someone you introduce joins and passes probation
• Learning
  • A training budget for the courses and books that move you forward, funded on approval by your lead
  • Company-provided access to frontier AI tooling, and time to learn it
• Culture
  • Employee-first culture that encourages work/life balance
  • Everyone has a voice, regardless of title
  • Psychological safety
  • Annual company outings
• Leave
  • 20 days annual leave
  • Three months paid maternity leave after six months’ service, and six months after eighteen months’ service
  • Two days a year to attend conferences, and paid leave for the days you spend presenting at one
  • Ten days paid parental leave for partners, fathers and adoptive parents
  • Five days study leave, three days family responsibility leave, one moving day and one volunteer day each year
• Long-Term Loyalty Benefits
  • 2 years - a monthly company-paid benefit of your choice: phone contract, Uber vouchers, retirement annuity contribution or petrol spend
  • 3 years - apply for a bursary to study further in your field
  • 5 years - 3 additional days annual leave, every year from then on
  • 7 years - A company-paid weekend getaway for you and your partner or family, plus an additional Friday or Monday as paid leave.
  • 10 years - 6 weeks’ paid leave plus an additional month’s salary.
  • 15 years, and every 5 years after - 4 weeks paid leave

Employment equity

StructureIt is an equal opportunity employer. Appointments are made in line with our Employment Equity plan, and preference may be given to suitably qualified candidates from designated groups as defined by the Employment Equity Act. People with disabilities are encouraged to apply, and we will discuss any reasonable accommodation you need.

Interested?

Send your CV to jobs@structureit.net

We will send you our interview pack, which sets out each stage of the process and what to expect.