Lead Business Analyst (Remote - US)

ICF Olson; United States; Remote; USD 99,000 - 168,000; Full time

Job summary

ICF is seeking a Lead Business Analyst to support a large modernization program. You will lead and coordinate BAs across multiple teams, ensuring requirements are complete and ready for development and testing, while providing hands-on analysis and leadership.

The role requires extensive Agile experience, strong writing and facilitation skills, and the ability to translate complex business processes into user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional specifications.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of Business Analyst experience supporting application development, digital transformation, or modernization initiatives.
• Lead BA on a large, complex program with multiple teams or workstreams.
• Experience leading, mentoring, and coordinating other BAs and ensuring consistent deliverables.
• Hands-on facilitation of requirements elicitation with diverse stakeholder groups.
• 5+ years documenting requirements and specifications for web-based or enterprise systems.
• 5+ years in a mature Agile delivery environment (Scrum or Kanban).
• Translate complex processes into user stories, acceptance criteria, and functional requirements.
• Jira for backlog, requirements, and delivery management; Confluence for documentation.

Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate BAs across multiple program workstreams, providing direction and oversight.
• Establish consistent requirements practices, documentation standards, and quality expectations.
• Review requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and process docs for completeness and clarity.
• Coordinate BA workload across workstreams; identify gaps and cross-team dependencies.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand complex business processes and system requirements.
• Elicit and analyze requirements; translate into user stories, acceptance criteria, and artifacts.
• Document system behavior, data flows, APIs, interfaces, and dependencies for testability.
• Manage backlogs in Jira with refinement and traceability; ensure readiness for development.
• Create and maintain functional, delivery, and governance documentation in Confluence.
• Support governance, intake, review, and acceptance processes.
• Provide BA leadership for new feature definition and refinement with program leadership and architects.
• Work with developers on wireframes, user flows, and prototypes to ensure alignment with requirements.
• Facilitate requirements sessions, workshops, and cross-team collaboration.
• Support demonstrations, incremental reviews, and acceptance checkpoints.

Skills

Lead BA

Mentoring

Requirements elicitation

Agile delivery

Stakeholder comms

Documentation

Backlog management

Confluence

Tools

Jira

Confluence

Figma

Job description

Geographic Preference

East Coast preferred; Must be able to support EST hours

Role Overview

As a Lead Business Analyst, you will play a key role in supporting delivery execution across a large, complex modernization program by ensuring business needs are translated into clear, actionable, and testable requirements. This is a hands-on leadership role. In addition to performing senior-level business analysis, the Lead BA is expected to lead and coordinate the work of other Business Analysts across multiple teams and workstreams, establish consistency in BA practices and deliverables, and help ensure requirements are complete and ready for development and testing. The role is primarily delivery-facing and embedded with technical teams, while also supporting structured client interaction at key points such as intake, requirements review, demonstrations, and acceptance. You will work closely with program leadership, technical leads, architects, developers, testers and other Business Analysts. Success in this role requires someone who can operate effectively at both the program level and within the details of delivery, balancing leadership and coordination with hands-on analysis and documentation.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate Business Analysts across multiple program workstreams, providing direction, mentoring, and oversight of BA activities and deliverables.
• Establish and reinforce consistent requirements practices, documentation standards, and quality expectations across the BA team.
• Review requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, process documentation, and other BA work products for completeness, consistency, clarity, and readiness for downstream development and testing.
• Help coordinate BA workload and activities across workstreams, identifying cross-team dependencies, requirements gaps, and areas requiring additional analysis.
• Work closely with technical and non-technical stakeholders to understand complex business processes and system requirements in a digital modernization environment.
• Lead requirements elicitation and analysis, translating business needs into clear user stories, acceptance criteria, functional requirements, and supporting artifacts.
• Analyze and document system behavior, including APIs, data flows, integrations, edge cases, business rules, and dependencies, to ensure requirements are complete and testable.
• Actively manage and maintain backlogs in Jira, ensuring appropriate refinement, prioritization, traceability, and readiness for development.
• Develop and maintain high-quality functional, delivery, and governance documentation in Confluence, including requirements, process flows, decision records, and other client-facing deliverables.
• Support and participate in established governance, intake, review, and acceptance processes.
• Provide BA leadership for the definition and refinement of new features and functionality, partnering with program leadership, technical leads, and other stakeholders to translate business needs into implementable solutions.
• Collaborate with architects and developers on solution designs, integrations, system interfaces, and technical dependencies.
• Produce and interpret complex documentation, including process flows, data mappings, interface definitions, reporting requirements, and functional specifications.
• Collaborate with developers, and stakeholders on wireframes, user flows, and prototypes to ensure alignment with business requirements and functional intent.
• Facilitate requirements sessions, working sessions, workshops, and cross-team collaboration with business, technical, and program stakeholders.
• Support system demonstrations, incremental reviews, acceptance checkpoints, and the preparation of associated documentation and deliverables.
• Contribute to a mature Agile delivery environment by applying best practices and supporting continuous improvement across teams.

What You Must Have

• 8+ years of Business Analyst experience supporting application development, digital transformation, and/or system modernization initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience serving as a Lead Business Analyst on a large, complex application development or modernization program involving multiple teams or workstreams.
• Demonstrated experience leading, mentoring, and coordinating the work of other Business Analysts, including reviewing BA deliverables and driving consistency in requirements practices and work products.
• Extensive hands‑on experience facilitating requirements elicitation sessions and working with diverse business and technical stakeholder groups.
• 5+ years of experience documenting requirements and specifications for web‑based or enterprise systems.
• 5+ years of recent experience working in a mature Agile delivery environment, such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex business processes and needs into user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, functional requirements, and other implementation-ready artifacts.
• Hands‑on experience with Jira for backlog, requirements, and delivery management.
• Hands‑on experience with Confluence or a comparable collaboration platform for requirements and delivery documentation.
• Working knowledge of modern software development lifecycles, including requirements traceability, integration testing, and release validation in Agile delivery environments.
• Strong professional and technical writing skills, with demonstrated ability to produce clear, concise, client‑ready requirements, functional documentation, process documentation, decision records, and other formal deliverables.
• Strong verbal communication and facilitation skills, including the ability to communicate complex business and technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem‑solving skills.
• Ability to work effectively across multiple teams and workstreams and balance program‑level coordination with detailed analysis.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen or Permanent Lawful Resident (Green Card Holder).
• Must reside in and perform work within the United States.
• Ability to obtain and maintain Public Trust clearance.

What we would like you to have

• Hands‑on experience with Figma is highly desirable, particularly experience reviewing, annotating, validating, or iterating on wireframes, user flows, and prototypes in collaboration with development, and business stakeholders.
• Experience supporting large-scale legacy system modernization, including APIs, system interfaces, and data integrations.
• Experience supporting governance, intake, and acceptance processes on large or complex delivery programs.
• Experience creating polished documentation and formal deliverables intended for client review and acceptance.
• Experience translating business requirements and user needs into effective application experiences.
• Experience using Mural or similar collaborative tools to facilitate requirements sessions, workshops, and cross-functional working sessions.
• Experience scoping and decomposing complex work into actionable units appropriate for Agile execution.
• Experience identifying and managing requirements dependencies across multiple development teams or workstreams.
• Ability to operate independently, exercise sound judgment, and provide leadership in a fast-paced delivery environment.

Salary and Benefits

The pay range for this position based on full-time employment is: $98,614.00 - $167,644.00. Nationwide Remote Office (US99)

Need help? We're here: [e-mail]

Work Authorization and Sponsorship

All candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. This position is not eligible for new H-1B visa sponsorship by ICF. Candidates who currently hold valid work authorization may be considered for a change of employer petition, subject to company policy and applicable immigration requirements.

Reasonable Accommodations

Reasonable Accommodations are available, including, but not limited to, for disabled veterans, individuals with disabilities, and individuals with sincerely held religious beliefs, in all phases of the application and employment process. To request an accommodation, please [e-mail] we will be happy to assist. All information you provide will be kept confidential and will be used only to the extent required to provide needed reasonable accommodations. Read more aboutworkplacediscriminationrights or our benefit offerings which are included in theTransparency in (Benefits) Coverage Act.