Who are we?
Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers' property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southwestern United States. Known as “The Relationship Company®,” we define success as a measure of the relationships we’ve built over time. In everything that we do, we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. That’s the power of “nice”. At Western National, nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve.
Does this opportunity interest you?
Western National is seeking a Business Analyst IV to join our Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) team!
The individual in this role will have the opportunity to lead the collaborative execution, management, and development of the requirements lifecycle and portions of the Business Analyst framework across the enterprise. The ideal candidate has strong analytical and communication skills, experience working with complex data environments, and the ability to understand both business processes and technical data solutions. This individual performs business analysis for higher-complexity tasks and higher-impact business process and software application modifications while guiding Business Analyst and Product Team members through best practices, requirements analysis, planning, and estimation.
What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role?
• Collaborates in ticket intake analysis and application troubleshooting.
• Participates in work refinement and estimation processes with Product Team members.
• Participates in troubleshooting, issue reporting, resolution, and communication of urgent production issues.
• Partners with product and change control teams to ensure quality deliverables that provide customer value.
• Creates and maintains documentation defined as important by the Product Team or company, including support processes, team processes, and system documentation.
• Supports noncore responsibilities as needed to ensure timely delivery of work to customers, including testing, road mapping, and directing deployment.
• Collaborates across Product Teams and the enterprise to direct requirements activities for transformational business process and software implementation initiatives of higher impact and risk.
• Applies, develops, and implements a comprehensive toolkit of advanced Business Analyst skills and techniques.
• Demonstrates Business Analyst competencies and skill sets focused on creating strategic value for new and future applications.
• Executes Business Analyst best practices as defined in the requirements lifecycle with minimal guidance from management.
• Applies in-depth expertise to troubleshoot root causes and resolve core problems across the enterprise that affect a wide range of business processes and applications.
• Identifies and develops opportunities to improve processes and best practices across Product Teams and directs teams and leadership in implementing process improvements.
• Plans, designs, researches, and analyzes strategic business plans, correlates results to identify patterns, and proposes solutions across Product Teams.
• Develops metrics and related reporting tools to improve Business Analyst performance against standards.
• Mentors and shares knowledge with other team members.
• Identifies and leads opportunities to improve or add value to enterprise-level business processes and applications using business cases, metrics, process improvement methodologies, and project management practices to drive change.
• Directs the evolution of team-level development best practices, standards, and policies while considering implications for work activities.
• Mobilizes action to resolve problems and improve processes at the Product Team and cross-team levels.
• Utilizes specialized knowledge, experience, and creative resources to identify a wide range of solutions and draw out solutions from Product Team members.
• Guides teams in evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of proposed solutions.
• Consistently acts according to our customer experience standards, including responding quickly, maintaining a positive attitude, building rapport, demonstrating empathy, managing the customer’s expectations, using the proper communication channel for the situation, and taking ownership to ensure the customer’s issue is resolved.
• Performs special projects and other duties as assigned.
Requirements
What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate?
• Strong SQL skills, including querying, joins, filtering, aggregation, and data validation.
• Experience with data warehouses, data lakes, relational databases, and reporting environments.
• Understanding of ETL/ELT processes, APIs, data integration, and data movement.
• Familiarity with data modeling concepts, including relational, dimensional, and analytical models.
• Experience with data quality rules, profiling, reconciliation, and validation.
• Familiarity with cloud data platforms such as Snowflake, AWS, Azure, or Databricks.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Confluence, Excel, Power BI, Tableau, Visio, or similar platforms
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills when dealing with ambiguity.
• Ability to work independently and carry assignments through completion.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Strong negotiation skills.
• Ability to lead change and positively influence people and processes.
• Ability to effectively collaborate with others as part of a team.
• Inquisitive mindset with a strong ability and desire for continuous learning.
• Strong organizational and multitasking skills.
• Demonstrated advanced organizational and prioritization skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities of higher impact and risk within specified timeframes.
• Demonstrated ability to consistently communicate clearly and effectively, both verbally and in writing, with technical and nontechnical audiences across all levels of the organization.
• Proficient use of various computer equipment and Microsoft Office applications, including Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• Proficient use of communication and collaboration tools, including JIRA, Confluence, SharePoint, Teams, and Mural.
• Expert understanding of supported domain and context technologies, systems, and processes.
• Ability to read and understand scripting and coding languages with working knowledge and ability to write simple scripts.
• Ability to write intermediate SQL queries with a proficient understanding of databases, data models, and related constructs.
• Expertise in Agile and various development methodologies, tools, and frameworks.
What will our ideal candidate have?
• Bachelor’s degree in business, information systems, computer science, data management, or a related field.
• Experience working with enterprise data, data warehouses, data lakes, reporting platforms, or data modernization initiatives.
• Experience working in Agile, hybrid, or structured project environments.
• Twelve-plus years of experience in IT or a related role.
• 5-8 years of experience as a Business Analyst, Data Analyst, Data Product Analyst, or similar role.
• Extensive Business Analyst training and Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) or equivalent certification.
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or Product Owner / Product Manager (POPM) certification.
• Property-and-casualty insurance industry experience or education.
Compensation overview
The targeted hiring range for this role is $104,300 - $143,440 annually. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge, skills, credentials, and experience of each candidate as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and/or may be considered for other positions.
Culture and Total Rewards
Western National has long been known as “The Relationship Company®” and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness, empowerment, and accountability, and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset.
Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National has also been named a Top Workplace by the Star Tribune for consecutive years. In addition, the Group is consistently recognized as a Ward’s 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results.
Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package, including:
• Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits, including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more!
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions)
• Wellbeing Program, including onsite fitness studio
• Paid Time Off – including holiday, vacation, and volunteer
• 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education)
• Paid parental leave
• Bonus opportunities
Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment, which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual, job, department, and company needs.
Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.
Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.