Senior Business Analyst – Manufacturing Automation

Key Responsibilities

• Elicit, define, and document requirements of all types for automation software releases supporting new manufacturing equipment, working directly with plant stakeholders, process engineers, and subject matter experts on the production floor.
• Work through ambiguity: structure loosely defined needs into documented processes, user stories, functional specifications, process flows, and diagrams that developers can build against.
• Drive release delivery forward. Track decisions, chase open items, build consensus among stakeholders, and recap direction so momentum isn't lost between meetings.
• Conduct requirements discovery for additional automation processes in the same production area, including current-state (manual) process documentation as a baseline.
• Assess existing solutions and prior work to inform reuse-versus-build decisions, partnering with client-side technical experts.
• Support QA and validation activities appropriate to a regulated manufacturing environment, including testable acceptance criteria, requirements traceability, test plans, and validation-ready documentation.
• Tie strategic business objectives to project work, quickly demonstrating detailed understanding of the client's operations and helping determine solutions to problems.
• Conduct and facilitate project meetings, from large group sessions to one-on-one SME interviews, including whiteboarding and developing visuals for the audience.
• Ramp up quickly on client-specific automation platforms with support from internal client experts.

Required Skills

• 5+ years of business analysis experience, including direct work with technical project teams and key client stakeholders to develop and manage requirements.
• Hands-on experience with MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) — gathering requirements for, implementing, integrating, or supporting MES in a production environment.
• Working knowledge of SECS/GEM equipment communication standards and how automated equipment integrates with factory systems.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn unfamiliar business processes, elicit requirements independently, and communicate takeaways clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience in manufacturing, industrial automation, or similarly operations-heavy environments. Comfortable working on or near a production floor.
• Sufficient software/technical fluency to translate operational requirements into build-ready specifications and hold credible conversations with developers about implementation approach.
• Experience with QA practices: developing testing requirements, end-user test plans, and quality assessments.
• Experience across SDLC methodologies (Agile/Scrum, iterative, waterfall) and an understanding of change management and the BA's role.
• Senior-level presence: self-directed, comfortable with compressed timelines, and able to produce value quickly with minimal oversight.

Bonus Skills

• Experience in regulated environments — medical device, FDA/GxP, or semiconductor manufacturing — including validation documentation and change control.
• Prior exposure to manufacturing automation platforms or equipment automation frameworks.
• Experience with Azure DevOps (TFS) and JIRA.
• Certified ScrumMaster or equivalent Agile certification.
• Prior consulting or client-facing services delivery experience.