Business Analyst

Blue Pearl PTY LTD; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Blue Pearl PTY LTD in Johannesburg is seeking a requirements analyst to translate business needs into functional and technical specifications. The role covers elicitation, analysis, and sign-off from stakeholders, and requires clear acceptance criteria before build work begins.

You will run workshops, document current and target states (as-is/to-be), assess regulatory and data-protection implications, and ensure traceability from requirements to tests.

Qualifications

• Run workshops, interviews and process walkthroughs with business stakeholders, subject matter experts and operations teams.
• Challenging stated requirements to establish underlying business need, decision being supported and value.
• Identify gaps, contradictions, duplication and unstated assumptions in source requirements and drive resolution.

Responsibilities

• Author functional specification documents that define system behavior in business terms: processes, use cases, business rules, decision tables and reporting outputs.
• Define exception paths, error handling and edge cases explicitly.
• Write clear, testable acceptance criteria for every requirement.
• Secure formal business sign-off on the functional specification before build commences.
• Translate approved functional specifications into technical specifications for engineering to build against.
• Document assumptions, dependencies, constraints and out-of-scope items.
• Groom and maintain the backlog; ensure items meet the definition of ready for a sprint.
• Support developers through build as the authority on intended behaviour.
• Triage defects during SIT/UAT and distinguish genuine defects from change requests.
• Contribute to release notes and user documentation.

Skills

Requirements elicitation

Business analysis

Documentation

Stakeholder management

Acceptance testing

Backlog grooming

Technical specification

Tools

BPMN

Job description

Johannesburg, South Africa

Sit between the business and the build team.Take business requirements — often incomplete, verbal, or expressed as outcomesrather than needs — and convert them into functional specifications thebusiness can sign off, and technical specifications engineers can implementwithout further interpretation.

The role owns the requirement from the momentit is raised until it is delivered, tested and accepted. Success is measured byhow few clarification cycles the build team needs and how little reworksurfaces in UAT.

Requirements

Keyresponsibilities

Requirementselicitation and analysis

• Runworkshops, interviews and process walkthroughs with business stakeholders,subject matter experts and operations teams.
  
• Challengestated requirements to establish the underlying business need, thedecision being supported, and the value being sought.
  
• Identifygaps, contradictions, duplication and unstated assumptions in the sourcerequirements, and drive them to resolution rather than escalating themunresolved.
  
• Documentcurrent-state ("as-is") processes and define target-state("to-be") processes, including the operational and controlchanges required.
  
• Assessregulatory, audit and data-protection implications of each requirement andflag where compliance input is needed.
  

Functionalspecification

• Authorfunctional specification documents that define system behaviour inbusiness terms: process flows, use cases or user stories, business rules,decision tables, validation logic, calculation logic, roles andpermissions, notifications, and reporting outputs.
  
• Defineexception paths, error handling and edge cases explicitly — not only thehappy path.
  
• Writeclear, testable acceptance criteria for every requirement.
  
• Secureformal business sign-off on the functional specification before buildcommences.
  

Technicalspecification

• Translatethe approved functional specification into a technical specification thatengineering can build against, covering:
  
• Systemand component architecture in scope, and the changes required to each.
  
• Integrationand interface specifications: API contracts, request/response payloads,protocols, authentication, error and retry behaviour, throughput andvolumetrics.
  
• Datamigration and transformation rules, including source-to-target fieldmappings and cleansing logic.
  
• Configurationversus customisation decisions, with rationale.
  
• Non-functionalrequirements: performance, availability, scalability, security,auditability, logging and monitoring.
  
• Workwith solution architects and developers to validate technical feasibility,sizing and effort, and to reconcile the specification with platformconstraints.
  
• Documentassumptions, dependencies, constraints and out-of-scope items.
  

Deliveryand quality support

• Groomand maintain the backlog; ensure work items entering a sprint meet theteam's definition of ready.
  
• Supportdevelopers through build, acting as the authority on intended behaviour.
  
• Authoror review test scenarios; support SIT and UAT, triage defects, anddistinguish genuine defects from change requests.
  
• Contributeto release notes, training material, user guides and operational handoverdocumentation.
  

Change andstakeholder management

• Runimpact assessments on change requests: effort, risk, dependencies, costand schedule implications.
  
• Manageversion control and change history across all specification artefacts.
  
• Keepbusiness and technical stakeholders aligned on scope, sequencing andtrade-offs, and communicate decisions and their consequences clearly toboth audiences.
  

Deliverablesowned by this role

• Requirementscatalogue / business requirements analysis
  
• Processmodels (BPMN or equivalent) — as-is and to-be
  
• Datadictionary and source-to-target mappings
  
• Interface/ integration specification
  
• Userstories with acceptance criteria
  
• Requirementstraceability matrix
  
• UATtest scenarios and support for execution