Systems Data Analyst

An independent governmental entity that administers and manages the retirement fund for the County of Los Angeles and outside districts is seeking a Systems Programmer Analyst for a 6+ month contract role. This is a hybrid position requiring onsite attendance 2-3 days per week in Pasadena, CA. Responsibilities * Serve as a Systems Programmer Analyst responsible for analyzing business and system needs, documenting requirements, and translating them into clear functional and technical specifications. * Perform systems analysis across applications, databases, batch jobs, interfaces, reports, and operational processes to support enhancements, troubleshooting, conversions, and production support. * Develop, execute, validate, and optimize complex SQL queries and scripts to research data issues, support analysis, confirm expected results, and validate business rules or system changes. * Analyze data structures, database relationships, source-to-target mappings, and application logic to support reporting, integrations, batch processing, and modernization efforts. * Create and maintain requirements documents, functional specifications, process flows, data mappings, test scenarios, validation results, and implementation support materials. * Collaborate with business users, developers, database administrators, quality assurance staff, architects, and project teams to clarify requirements, evaluate options, and support delivery of system changes. * Support development and testing activities by reviewing logic, validating program output, creating test data, documenting defects, and assisting with optional programming or scripting tasks when needed. * Assist with production support, implementation planning, post-deployment validation, and clear communication of findings, risks, and recommended remediation steps. Requirements * A Bachelor's Degree from an accredited college in Computer Science, Information Systems, Business Information Systems, or a closely related field, -AND- at least three (3) years of progressively responsible, full-time, paid experience in a centralized Information Technology organization performing systems analysis, requirements documentation, application support, data analysis, SQL development, application development, or related technical analysis work. * Strong systems analyst experience is required, including requirements gathering, functional and process analysis, technical documentation, stakeholder coordination, testing support, and implementation support. * Advanced SQL proficiency is required, including writing, modifying, debugging, optimizing, executing, and validating SQL queries and scripts for data analysis, reconciliation, troubleshooting, reporting, and system validation. * Experience analyzing relational databases, data models, source-to-target mappings, stored procedures, data quality issues, and application or batch processing logic is required. * Experience supporting application development, enhancement, conversion, or modernization initiatives is required, including the ability to work with developers and technical teams to clarify logic, validate outputs, and support design decisions. * Programming experience is preferred but not required; desirable experience may include Java, Spring, scripting, batch processing, report development, stored procedures, mainframe, or legacy technologies. * Experience designing automated parity/comparison gates instead of manual report-by-report checks, and supporting a legacy-to-modern parallel-run/cut-over cycle is preferred. * Strong analytical, troubleshooting, problem-solving, communication, facilitation, documentation, and attention-to-detail skills are required.