Business Systems Analyst Job Duluth area,Minnesota USA,IT/Tech

We are seeking a highly technical Business Systems Analyst to support the onboarding, transformation, and validation of external data sources into our legacy database environment. This role is hands‑on and data‑driven, requiring strong analytical skills, a solid understanding of data structures, and close collaboration with product stakeholders and developers.

The Role

What You’ll Do

External Data Source Analysis & Integration
Assess new data sources to understand structure, quality, completeness, and alignment with internal standards and product requirements.
Work with cross-functional partners to understand acquisition constraints, delivery formats, schedules, and long‑term viability.
Define functional specifications for extraction and ingestion workflows, including data gathering, file merges, source‑to‑target mappings, normalization rules, and required transformations.
Collaborate with developers to design, refine, and support these ETL/ELT components.
Maintain lookup tables, mapping logic, and configurations to align source values with internal defined codes.
Data Validation & Quality Assurance
Validate ingested data in lower environments to confirm correct transformations, consistent formatting, and adherence to technical and business requirements.
Use SQL to investigate and troubleshoot data discrepancies, unmapped values, anomalies, and processing issues across ingestion and transformation layers.
Analyze data completeness by matching and comparing new data sources against internal datasets to confirm expected jurisdictional representation.
Identify and elevate issues such as incomplete data, mapping gaps, unexpected variances, extraction, or transformation failures.
Coordinate deployments of new data pipelines and perform post‑production monitoring to ensure stability, accuracy, and consistency in partnership with QA.
Cross‑Functional Collaboration
Partner with Product Owners to prioritize onboarding activities, communicate timelines, and understand business expectations.
Collaborate closely with developers to clarify requirements, validate technical feasibility, and support iterative testing and troubleshooting.
Communicate findings, risks, and impacts clearly across technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
Documentation & Process Support
Document data source characteristics, field definitions, transformation logic, mapping decisions, validation outcomes, and configuration details.
Maintain accurate, versioned documentation to support long‑term maintainability of source integrations.
Provide knowledge transfer, cross‑training, and support to internal teams as new sources are deployed or updated.

Tools & Technologies Used

SQL Server: data validation, mapping updates, troubleshooting
Excel: data profiling, pivoting, quality verification, troubleshooting, data summarization
Notepad++ (or similar Text Editor): for comparing and editing various file formats.
Optional exposure: ETL/ELT tools, automation utilities, file‑processing frameworks

What You’ll Bring

5+ years as a Business Systems Analyst, Data Analyst, or similar technical, data‑focused role.
Strong SQL skills and experience working with relational databases.
Experience analyzing raw data and defining transformation requirements for system‑ready outputs.
Ability to troubleshoot complex data issues, identify root causes, and recommend solutions.
Strong analytical thinking, documentation skills, and attention to detail.
Proven ability to collaborate with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
Experience working in Agile environments.

Nice to Have

Experience with data ingestion pipelines, ETL/ELT workflows, or legacy database environments.
Exposure to flat‑file ingestion, API‑based data retrieval, or web‑based data extraction.
Knowledge of data governance practices.
Experience with insurance,…