Business Systems Analyst - Contract

At Horizontal Digital, we hold ourselves to one key belief: You’re only as good as your worst customer experience. This mantra is what drives our digital consultancy to think beyond the easy answers and instead create websites, apps, portals and other experiences that solve customer needs for Fortune 500 companies in intuitive and empathetic ways. And we make this lofty standard a reality by fusing strategy, data, design and technology together to arrive at solutions that set the bar higher for everyone.

We use these values to fuel superior results:

Lock arms
We forge relationships that make our impact 1,000x stronger. This means working across departments and engaging both our clients and our communities to deliver the greatest good.

Show hustle
We’re not ones to sit on our hands and wait. Instead, we anticipate opportunities, collectively roll up our sleeves and find ways to execute the exceptional.

Embrace change
From new technologies to workplace philosophies, we welcome the unexpected and constantly anticipate what’s next.

Elevate empathy
We listen before we take action. This means understanding a variety of perspectives and holding ourselves to a higher standard of accountability.

Never settle
We motivate each other to push past the easy answers and collectively arrive at bigger, more inspiring ideas.
 
But enough about us. Let’s talk about you. 
 

What you’ll do: 

Business Requirements:

• Translate business needs into well-structured user stories with descriptions and acceptance criteria.
• Leads backlog refinement by ensuring requirements are clear, feasible, and aligned with business goals.
• Assist in solution design sessions, providing documentation and clarifications.

Scope Management:

• Support scope management by documenting changes and raising feasibility concerns to senior analysts or project leads.
• Identify potential risks or blockers and escalate for guidance and resolution.

Prioritization and Stakeholder Support:

• Gather stakeholder input to inform backlog prioritization, ensuring requirements reflect business priorities and dependencies.
• Act as a liaison between business and technical teams under senior guidance, fostering alignment and shared understanding.

Cross-Functional Alignment:

• Participate in agile ceremonies such as sprint planning, backlog grooming, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Collaborate with developers, QA, and product teams to ensure delivery readiness and quality outcomes.

Backlog Management:

• Maintain a transparent and organized backlog, ensuring items are development ready.
• Ensure traceability between business goals and user stories.

Learning and Growth:

• Develop an intermediate understanding of the digital ecosystem, including CMS, CRM, and related engagement platforms.

• Contribute to team knowledge sharing, documentation, and process improvement efforts.

Who you are: 

Learning Agility:

• Demonstrates initiative in growing technical and business knowledge; eager to expand proficiency in Sitecore XM Cloud and other enterprise platforms.

Communication:

• Clearly documents requirements and proactively seeks clarification when needed.
• Contributes to building shared understanding among stakeholders and team members.

Collaboration:

• Works effectively in cross-functional teams, building alignment under the guidance of senior analysts or project leads.

Technical Acumen:

• Comfortable discussing requirements with technical teams at a functional level, with the aptitude to grow into discussing technical requirements.
• Applies transferable understanding of digital platforms to new tools and ecosystems.

Problem Solving:

• Identifies issues in requirements, backlog, or process and escalates with recommendations.
• Demonstrates growing independence in resolving moderately complex challenges.

What you bring:  

• 4+ years of experience working on digital initiatives, software development, or IT projects as a Business Systems Analyst, or in a similar role.
• Experience working with enterprise CMS platforms (such as Sitecore, Optimizely, Contenstack, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) preferred).
• Familiarity with digital ecosystems such as ERP, PIM, marketing automation, personalization, or customer service tools.
• Agency/consultancy experience highly preferred. 
• Basic to intermediate knowledge of API-driven integrations and data interchange across the customer journey.
• Bachelor’s Degree (or foreign equivalent) required.
• Demonstrated experience supporting backlog management, writing user stories, participating in backlog refinement, iterative delivery, and UAT.
• Experience working in agile delivery environments, with familiarity in Scrum or Kanban.
• Certifications in Agile, Scrum, or Product Ownership are a plus (e.g., CSPO, SAFe PMPO, CSM).
• Experience with Jira/Confluence toolset preferred.

The above description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities, and activities may change at any time with or without notice.