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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Application Analyst

💰 $65,000 - $110,000

Information TechnologyApplicationsBusiness AnalysisIT Support

🎯 Role Definition

An Application Analyst is responsible for ensuring the operational health, performance, and continual improvement of business applications and integrations. Acting as a bridge between IT and business stakeholders, the Application Analyst provides incident and problem resolution, implements enhancements, manages releases and configurations, and drives data-informed decisions. This role requires a combination of technical troubleshooting, business analysis, vendor coordination, and strong stakeholder communication to maintain SLAs and deliver reliable application services across the enterprise.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Application Support Analyst
  • Technical Support Specialist / Help Desk
  • Business Systems Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Application Analyst / Lead Application Analyst
  • Application Support Manager / IT Service Manager
  • Integration Architect / Solutions Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Business Analyst (functional, process-focused)
  • Project Manager (technical project delivery)
  • Data Analyst / BI Developer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Provide day-to-day application support and troubleshooting for enterprise and SaaS applications, responding to incidents and service requests to meet defined SLAs while ensuring timely escalation and communication to stakeholders.
  • Triage, diagnose, and resolve complex incidents using logs, monitoring tools, and root-cause analysis; document findings, workaround steps, and permanent fixes in the knowledge base.
  • Manage and execute application patching, configuration changes, and version upgrades in collaboration with development teams, QA, and vendors while ensuring rollback plans and release notes are prepared.
  • Coordinate and lead user acceptance testing (UAT) cycles for new releases and enhancements, create test plans and test cases, track defects, and validate fixes with business owners before production deployment.
  • Write, review and optimize SQL queries, stored procedures, and data extracts; perform data validation, reconciliation, and ad-hoc reporting to support business decisions and audits.
  • Configure and maintain application integrations and middleware (API endpoints, batch jobs, ETL processes), monitor integration health, and troubleshoot data flow issues between systems.
  • Implement and maintain application access controls and provisioning processes, including role-based access control (RBAC), user lifecycle management, and audit-ready access reviews.
  • Collaborate with product owners and business stakeholders to gather and document functional requirements, create process maps and user stories, and translate business needs into technical specifications.
  • Maintain and update runbooks, system documentation, configuration items, and the CMDB to ensure accurate configuration and operational readiness.
  • Monitor application performance, implement optimization recommendations, and work with infrastructure teams to tune system resources, databases, and network configurations to improve response times.
  • Manage vendor relationships for third-party applications, escalate issues, coordinate support cases, and ensure vendor SLAs and contractual obligations are met.
  • Implement and maintain alerting and application monitoring using tools such as New Relic, Dynatrace, CloudWatch, or Application Insights to proactively detect and remediate issues.
  • Support release management processes, including change requests, test coordination, production deployment validation, and post-release support to minimize business disruption.
  • Develop automation scripts and small utilities (PowerShell, Python, Bash) to streamline support tasks, scheduled jobs, and routine maintenance activities.
  • Lead incident post-mortems and continuous improvement initiatives by documenting root causes, corrective actions, and preventive measures to reduce recurrence.
  • Build and deliver training materials, user guides, and conduct walkthroughs for business users and support teams to improve adoption and reduce recurring tickets.
  • Ensure compliance with security standards, data protection policies, and regulatory requirements by participating in audits, remediation plans, and implementing secure configuration practices.
  • Analyze usage patterns and operational metrics to propose application roadmap items, process improvements, and cost-saving opportunities to product owners and senior management.
  • Participate in cross-functional Agile teams, contribute to sprint planning, define acceptance criteria, and support backlog grooming from a technical and operational perspective.
  • Provide on-call or after-hours support as required, coordinating incident response, communicating status to stakeholders, and ensuring timely resolution during critical outages.
  • Maintain dashboards and KPI reporting around application availability, mean time to resolution (MTTR), ticket volumes, and change success rates for IT leadership reviews.
  • Manage and prioritize multiple concurrent requests and projects, balancing tactical support work with strategic initiatives and ensuring transparent stakeholder updates.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Facilitate cross-team dependencies and coordinate integration test cycles between development, QA, and business teams.
  • Create and maintain technical specifications and acceptance criteria for small enhancements and bug fixes.
  • Assist with backup, restore, and disaster recovery validations for application-related data and configurations.
  • Conduct periodic health checks and configuration reviews to ensure environments adhere to standards and governance.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Strong SQL and relational database experience (T-SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle, SQL Server) for troubleshooting, reporting, and data reconciliation.
  • Experience with application support tools and ITSM platforms (ServiceNow, JIRA, BMC Remedy) including incident, change, and problem management workflows.
  • Familiarity with APIs, REST/JSON, SOAP/XML, and experience troubleshooting integrations and web services.
  • Hands-on experience with monitoring and APM tools (New Relic, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, CloudWatch) to detect and diagnose performance issues.
  • Knowledge of common enterprise applications and SaaS platforms (Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, SAP, Oracle EBS) and their support ecosystems.
  • Scripting and automation skills (PowerShell, Python, Bash) to automate routine tasks, job scheduling, and deployment steps.
  • Experience with version control and CI/CD tools (Git, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) and basic understanding of deployment pipelines.
  • Familiarity with Windows and Linux operating systems, basic server administration, and network troubleshooting concepts.
  • Understanding of data integration/ETL concepts and tools (Informatica, SSIS, Mulesoft, Dell Boomi) for cross-system data flows.
  • Experience creating test plans, executing UAT, and logging/managing defects through lifecycle.
  • Knowledge of access management, RBAC, authentication standards (SAML, OAuth), and best practices for secure provisioning.
  • Ability to read application logs and trace stack traces, plus familiarity with debugging techniques for web and middleware layers.
  • Basic knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and cloud-native service troubleshooting is preferred.
  • Familiarity with regulatory and compliance concepts (SOX, GDPR, HIPAA) where applicable.

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication to explain technical issues to non-technical stakeholders and to write clear runbooks and knowledge articles.
  • Excellent analytical thinking and problem-solving, with a methodical approach to root-cause analysis.
  • Customer-service orientation and stakeholder management; ability to prioritize business impact and manage expectations.
  • Collaboration and teamwork when working across engineering, QA, operations, and business units.
  • Attention to detail and documentation discipline to ensure repeatable operational processes.
  • Time management and multitasking skills to balance critical incident response and project work.
  • Adaptability and willingness to learn new applications, frameworks, and tools as the environment evolves.
  • Decision-making under pressure during outages and incident escalations.
  • Continuous improvement mindset to propose and implement process and automation enhancements.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering or a related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or Business Administration with an IT focus.
  • Professional certifications (ITIL Foundation, ServiceNow Admin, AWS/Azure fundamentals, Certified ScrumMaster) are a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Software Engineering
  • Business Administration with IT concentration
  • Data Analytics / Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–6 years of hands-on application support, systems analysis, or business systems experience in enterprise environments.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years supporting enterprise applications, integrations, and complex multi-tiered systems.
  • Demonstrated experience working with ITSM processes, release management, and cross-functional stakeholder coordination.
  • Proven track record of reducing incident recurrence through root cause remediation and automation.
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