Lead Systems Analyst

Simon and Schuster Books; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision benefits

401(k) plan

Life Insurance

Disability benefits

Tuition assistance

Paid time off

Broad Based Ownership

Job summary

Simon & Schuster US is investing in a multi-year modernization of core order management, fulfillment, partner integration, and financial systems. The Lead Systems Analyst will bridge business operations and engineering, ensuring that current behaviors are preserved while replacements are validated before production.

This senior role requires deep business understanding, high judgment, and collaboration with owners across order management, distribution, EDI, and finance to document behavior,

Qualifications

• 7+ years of business/systems analysis experience for large-scale order processing or fulfillment.
• Experience with EDI and order/shipment processing for large-scale distribution or publishing operations.
• Experience using AI tools for discovery and documentation and validating AI output.

Responsibilities

• Document required functionality, production usage, and dependencies for modernization modules.
• Validate legacy systems and determine retirement needs with business owners.
• Translate requirements into clear, testable solution specs for engineering and QA.
• Prioritize modernization work with business stakeholders based on operational pain points.
• Coordinate business sign-off and production cutovers for new implementations.
• Communicate changes and rationale between modernization teams and business users.

Skills

Business analysis

Stakeholder communication

Requirements translation

Analytical writing

Judgment & decision making

AI-assisted analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Tools

SQL

EDI systems

AutoSys

Job description

Simon & Schuster was named to Forbes magazine list of America's Best Mid-Size Employers 2022. Simon & Schuster is a global leader in general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for readers of all ages, and in all printed, digital and audio formats. Its distinguished roster of authors includes many of the world's most popular and widely recognized writers, and winners of the most prestigious literary honors and awards. It is home to numerous well-known imprints and divisions such as Simon & Schuster, Scribner, Atria Books, Gallery Books, Pocket Books, Adams Media, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing and Simon & Schuster Audio and international companies in Australia, Canada, India and the United Kingdom, and proudly brings the works of its authors to readers in more than 200 countries and territories. For more information visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.

About The Role

Simon & Schuster is investing in a multi-year modernization of the core systems that power order management, fulfillment, partner integration, and financial transactions. We are replacing long-established technology with modern .NET and SQL solutions using an AI-assisted approach and success depends as much on business understanding as on engineering.

The Lead Systems Analyst is the bridge between business operations and the engineering team. This is a senior, high-judgment role: the hardest part of modernizing established systems is not writing new code - it is understanding what the current systems actually do, confirming which behaviors still matter to the business, and proving that replacements behave correctly before they take over production. This role owns that judgment.

The Lead Systems Analyst works directly with business owners across order management, distribution, EDI, and finance operations to document required behavior, validate what is actually used, prioritize what gets modernized first, define acceptance criteria, and coordinate business sign-off for production cutovers.

Key Responsibilities

• Discovery and documentation — Work with business and technical teams to document required functionality, production usage, business rules, interfaces, reports, and dependencies for each modernization module, using AI-assisted analysis and documentation tooling to accelerate the work.
• Usage validation and retirement analysis — Determine which legacy programs, jobs, reports, and interfaces are still used and still needed; build the evidence case for retiring what is not; obtain business-owner approval for retirement decisions.
• Requirements translation — Convert business requirements and legacy behavior into clear, testable solution requirements that engineers can implement directly: data mappings, business-rule specifications, acceptance criteria, and edge-case definitions.
• Prioritization with the business — Run recurring priority reviews with business stakeholders; translate operational pain (failures, delays, manual workarounds) into modernization sequencing.
• Validation and cutover sign-off — Review reconciliation and parallel-run results (first-pass data comparison is performed by the QA / Test Automation Engineer) from the business perspective: confirm that differences are explained, that required business behavior is preserved, and that edge cases the business cares about are covered. Coordinate business user testing and provide the business sign-off that gates each production cutover.
• Stakeholder communication — Serve as the credible, consistent voice between the modernization team and the business users who depend on the system daily: what is changing, when, and why it is safe.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of business/systems analysis experience, including significant experience on large-scale order processing, fulfillment, or supply-chain systems.
• Experience with EDI, order processing, and shipment-confirmation processing for large-scale distribution or publishing operations — including order intake and acknowledgements, distribution/warehouse orchestration, and invoicing flows.
• Experience using AI tools for discovery and documentation — e.g., AI-assisted code or system analysis, requirements extraction, or documentation generation — and the judgment to validate AI output against real system behavior.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with both business users and engineers — comfortable eliciting requirements from operations staff in business language and defending those requirements in technical design discussions.
• Proven ability to translate business requirements into coding/solution requirements — data mappings, rule specifications, and acceptance criteria precise enough for direct implementation and test automation.
• Strong analytical writing: able to produce documentation that becomes the authoritative record of system behavior.
• The judgment to distinguish a true business rule from a historical implementation accident.

Preferred Qualifications

• Publishing-industry experience.
• Experience on a legacy-modernization, system-replacement, or platform-migration program.
• Exposure to legacy or mainframe-style environments (e.g., COBOL-era batch systems) — enough familiarity to work effectively with legacy specialists when documenting system behavior. No programming or code-reading skills required.
• Familiarity with SQL — able to read queries and data-reconciliation reports and reason about data-level parity between systems.
• Familiarity with batch scheduling environments (AutoSys or similar) and overnight batch operations.
• Experience with warehouse management (WMS), 3PL, or drop-ship integration workflows.
• Experience coordinating user acceptance testing and production cutover approvals.

What Success Looks Like

• Engineers rarely need to re-research scope: discovery output is complete, accurate, and actionable.
• Replacements pass business validation on the first attempt; post-cutover defect rates stay low.
• Retirement decisions are evidence-backed and business-approved, measurably shrinking the legacy footprint.
• Business stakeholders report increased confidence in the modernization program.

Simon & Schuster US is an equal opportunity employer (EOE). At Simon & Schuster US, the spirit of inclusion feeds into everything that we do. From employee benefits/programs and social impact outreach initiatives, we believe that opportunity, access, resources and rewards should be available to and for the benefit of all. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, creed, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression), age, citizenship status, marital status, and Veteran status where protected by law or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

The hiring salary range for this position applies to New York City, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay for the successful applicant depends on a variety of job-related factors, including but not limited to geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education. The benefits available for this position include medical, dental, vision, 401(k) plan, life insurance coverage, disability benefits, tuition assistance program and PTO or, if applicable. Additionally, employees have access to our industry-first, Broad Based Ownership program, which makes all employees partners in our shared success.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals in accordance with applicable law. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact us at [insert contact information]. Unrelated emails, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

Candidates hired for this or any other posted Simon & Schuster role will be employees of Simon & Schuster, LLC, subject to all policies, including the Workplace Privacy Notice, and eligible solely for the benefits plans thereof.