Advanced Business Analyst

Wintrust provides community and commercial banking, specialty finance and wealth management services through its 16 bank charters and nine non-bank businesses. Wintrust delivers the sophisticated solutions of a large bank while staying true to the relationship-focused, personalized service of our community banking roots. We serve clients in all 50 states with more than 200 branch banking locations in Illinois, southwestern Florida, northwestern Indiana, west Michigan and southern Wisconsin and commercial banking offices in Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Mich., and in key branch banking locations throughout Illinois. Our people are the heart of our business and we are proud to rank consistently as a top place to work. Wintrust is a $66 billion financial institution based in Rosemont, Illinois, and listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "WTFC."

Why join us?

• An award-winning culture! We are rated a Top Workplace by the Chicago Tribune (past 8 years) and Employee Recommended award by the Globe & Mail (past 6 years)

• Competitive pay and discretionary bonus eligible

• Comprehensive benefit package including medical, dental, vision, life, a 401k plan with a generous company match and tuition reimbursement to name a few

• Promote from within culture

Why join this team?

• We stress the importance of teamwork and learning from each other so the team always exceeds business expectations

• We are a dynamic and growing team that plays a critical role at Wintrust.

• We foster a culture of collaboration, empowerment, responsibility and accomplishment.

• We hold ourselves accountable to high standards, share wins, operate ethically, and have fun during the process

• This role offers the ability to make an impact and interface with the various aspects of Wintrust's businesses lines

Position Summary

The Advanced Business Analyst is a mid-level business analysis position and serves as a highly skilled business analysis professional responsible for leading business analysis activities and facilitating the successful delivery of technology and business solutions across multiple initiatives, programs, and business units. This role acts as a strategic liaison between business stakeholders and technology teams, ensuring that business needs are accurately understood, documented, prioritized, and translated into effective solutions that deliver business value.

The Advanced Business Analyst partners closely with business leaders, product owners, architects, developers, project managers, and vendors to identify opportunities, solve complex business challenges, and drive successful project outcomes. This role combines strong business analysis expertise with Agile delivery leadership, support solution design activities, stakeholder engagement, and quality assurance activities.

The successful candidate will facilitate Agile ceremonies, lead requirements discovery and solution design sessions, develop business and functional requirements, create user stories and acceptance criteria, support testing activities, ensure alignment between business objectives and technology deliverables. The role requires strong analytical thinking, exceptional communication, presentation, and organizational skills, and the ability to influence stakeholders while working across cross-functional teams in both Agile and traditional delivery environments.

What You'll Do

Business Analysis & Requirements Management

• Elicit, analyze, validate, document, and manage business, functional, technical, and non-functional requirements.
• Translate complex business needs into actionable user stories, epics, features, process flows, business rules, use cases, and functional specifications.
• Facilitate stakeholder interviews, workshops, discovery sessions, and requirements review meetings.
• Develop Business Requirements Documents (BRDs), Functional Specification Documents (FSDs), requirements traceability matrices, and supporting project artifacts.
• Analyze and document current-state and future-state business processes and identify opportunities for improvements and facilitate discussions.
• Distill complex enterprise challenges into clear, concise, and actionable solution requirements.
• Develop wireframes, mockups, process maps, swim lane diagrams, context diagrams, and visual solution models where applicable.
• Facilitate solution design workshops and collaborate with architects, developers, UX/UI teams, and business stakeholders to define optimal solutions.
• Ensure proposed solutions support scalability, usability, operational efficiency, and long-term business objectives.

Agile Delivery Leadership

• Facilitate and lead Agile ceremonies including Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Reviews, Release Planning, and Retrospectives.
• Partner with Product Owners and stakeholders to prioritize, maintain, and optimize product backlogs.
• Monitor sprint progress, identify and remove delivery impediments, and proactively manage risks, dependencies, and escalations.
• Foster accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and delivery excellence across project teams.
• Ensure development activities remain aligned with business priorities and strategic objectives.

Testing & Quality Assurance

• Develop test scenarios, test cases, and acceptance criteria to support solution validation.
• Coordinate and support System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), regression testing, and production validation activities.
• Validate delivered functionality against documented requirements and business expectations.
• Participate in defect management, issue resolution, and quality assurance efforts throughout the project lifecycle.

Stakeholder Relationship Management

• Build trusted partnerships with business leaders, executives, technology teams, vendors, and project stakeholders.
• Serve as a trusted advisor by providing business insights, solution recommendations, and delivery guidance.
• Facilitate effective communication across all organizational levels.
• Influence decision-making through data-driven analysis, strong facilitation skills, and collaborative leadership.
• Promote transparency, accountability, and stakeholder confidence throughout project execution.
• Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Governance & Delivery Support
• Apply best practices across Agile, Scrum, Hybrid, and Waterfall methodologies.
• Ensure adherence to organizational SDLC standards, governance processes, documentation requirements, and quality controls.
• Support project planning, estimation, capacity planning, dependency management, risk identification, and change management activities.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of business analysis practices, templates, standards, and delivery methodologies.

Qualifications

• Minimum 3-5 years of Business Analysis in a financial services environment with special emphasis on coordinating business, functional and technical requirements and/or project management across large cross functional teams, programs or projects.
• Minimum 2 years of experience working within Agile Scrum delivery environments.
• Proven experience facilitating Scrum ceremonies and supporting Agile delivery teams.
• Strong understanding of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methodologies, including Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, and Hybrid approaches.
• Experience eliciting, documenting, and managing business, functional, technical, and non-functional requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to create user stories, epics, acceptance criteria, functional specifications, process models, and testing artifacts.
• Experience supporting end-to-end testing activities including SIT, UAT, regression testing, and defect management.
• Experience working on enterprise-level initiatives involving multiple business units, stakeholders, vendors, and technology teams.
• Ability to facilitate workshops, requirements sessions, solution design discussions, and stakeholder meetings.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, facilitation, organizational, and time-management skills.
• Bachelor's degree in business, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related discipline preferred.
• Excellent verbal, written, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively on multiple projects simultaneously while managing competing priorities and deadlines.

Required Skills:

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite, including Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Project.
• Experience using Jira, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, or similar Agile delivery platforms.
• Experience using Visio, LucidChart, or similar diagramming and wireframing tools.
• Working knowledge of business process modeling, workflow analysis, and requirements traceability.
• Basic understanding of data management, analytics, reporting concepts, and technology solution architecture.

Industry Experience:

• Experience within Financial Services, Banking, Mortgage, Insurance, or other highly regulated industries preferred.
• Working knowledge of business operations, technology delivery practices, and industry trends.

Core Competencies

• Strong leadership and collaboration skills with the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Exceptional stakeholder engagement and relationship-building capabilities.
• Strong facilitation, negotiation, and conflict resolution skills.
• Ability to think strategically while maintaining attention to detail.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate complex business problems to facilitate developing practical, value-driven solutions.
• Strong customer-focused mindset and commitment to continuous improvement.
• Positive attitude, adaptability, intellectual curiosity, and commitment to team success.

Preferred Qualifications

• Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) or equivalent Business Analysis Certification.

Benefits

Medical Insurance • Dental • Vision • Life insurance • Accidental death and dismemberment • Short-term and long-term Disability Insurance • Parental Leave • Employee Assistance Program (EAP) • Traditional and Roth 401(k) with company match • Flexible Spending Account (FSA) • Employee Stock Purchase Plan at 5% discount • Critical Illness Insurance • Accident Insurance • Transportation and Commuting Benefits • Banking Benefits • Pet Insurance

Compensation

The estimated salary range for this role is $82,000.00 - $102,000.00, along with eligibility to earn an annual bonus. Actual salaries may vary based on several factors, such as a candidate's qualifications, skills and experience.

#LI-REMOTE

#LI-VB1

From our first day in business, Wintrust has been proud to serve a variety of unique communities and people from all walks of life. To build a company that reflects the communities we serve, we believe that fostering a unique and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered to succeed will support our ongoing success. Wintrust Financial Corporation, including community banking and financial services subsidiaries, is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, genetic information, and other legally protected categories.