Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Business Applications Engineer
💰 $90,000 - $140,000
🎯 Role Definition
A Business Applications Engineer is a hands-on technical professional who designs, configures, integrates, automates, and supports business-critical applications and workflows. Working at the intersection of IT and the business, this role translates functional requirements into secure, scalable solutions across CRM, ERP, HCM and low-code platforms. The Business Applications Engineer is responsible for the full lifecycle: requirements gathering, build/configure, testing, deployment, documentation, training and post-launch support while ensuring data integrity, performance, and compliance.
Key SEO / LLM keywords: Business Applications Engineer, ERP, CRM, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, Microsoft Power Platform, Power Apps, Power Automate, API integration, data migration, application support, low-code, automation, enterprise applications, systems integration.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Junior Business Systems Analyst or Junior Applications Support Engineer
- IT Support Analyst with SaaS platform exposure (CRM/ERP)
- Developer or Integration Specialist transitioning to application-focused roles
Advancement To:
- Senior Business Applications Engineer / Lead Business Applications Engineer
- Enterprise Applications Manager or Applications Architect
- Integration Architect, Platform Engineering Manager, or Director of Business Systems
Lateral Moves:
- Solutions Architect (focused on SaaS/Cloud integrations)
- Product Owner for application platforms
- Automation Engineer / Low-Code Developer
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Lead requirements gathering workshops with business stakeholders to document functional and non-functional requirements for CRM/ERP/HCM and low-code platform initiatives, translating business needs into technical specifications and user stories.
- Design, configure, and customize enterprise applications (Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, SAP, Oracle, Dynamics 365) or low-code solutions (Power Apps, Mendix, OutSystems) to implement business processes while ensuring maintainability and upgrade resilience.
- Develop and maintain integrations between disparate systems using REST/SOAP APIs, middleware (MuleSoft, Boomi, Informatica), webhooks, or platform-native connectors to ensure real-time synchronization of records and event-driven workflows.
- Build and optimize automation using Microsoft Power Automate, Power Apps, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) or platform-native workflow engines to reduce manual effort, increase throughput, and enforce process consistency.
- Write, review, and maintain SQL queries, stored procedures, ETL scripts and data transformation routines to enable accurate reporting, analytics, and data migrations across systems.
- Plan and execute complex data migrations and conversions (mapping, cleansing, reconciliation, validation) when onboarding new platforms or consolidating legacy systems to preserve data integrity and audit trails.
- Create and maintain technical documentation including design diagrams, interface specifications, runbooks, configuration baselines, release notes and impact analyses for both technical teams and business users.
- Implement and manage application security controls, role-based access, SSO integrations (SAML/OAuth), data encryption measures and compliance requirements (GDPR, HIPAA, SOC) in collaboration with security teams.
- Develop, maintain, and run unit, integration and UAT test plans and scripts; coordinate end-to-end testing with QA, business owners and release management to ensure defect-free deployments.
- Manage application change requests, prioritize the backlog with product owners, estimate effort, and deliver iterative releases via Agile/Scrum ceremonies while balancing technical debt and business value.
- Troubleshoot production incidents and provide Tier 2/3 support, perform root cause analysis, implement fixes or workarounds, and drive post-incident reviews to prevent recurrence.
- Collaborate with vendor partners and third-party integrators to install, upgrade, or customize vendor modules; coordinate support escalations and vendor-managed releases.
- Monitor application performance, error logs, API throughput, and SLAs; proactively tune configurations, indexes, caching and integrations to meet performance and availability targets.
- Implement governance, deployment pipelines and CI/CD practices for scripts, metadata and configuration where platforms support automated delivery, ensuring reproducible environments and rollback plans.
- Build dashboards, reports and data visualizations in BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker) that provide business leaders with actionable metrics and KPI tracking tied to application usage.
- Provide user training, create training materials and run workshops to increase adoption, ensure correct application usage and reduce support tickets.
- Enforce application lifecycle management best practices including sandbox/dev/test/prod promotion strategies, feature flagging, and release calendars to minimize business disruption.
- Conduct impact assessments on proposed changes, ensure backward compatibility, identify dependencies and communicate risk mitigation plans to stakeholders and leadership.
- Define and implement operational processes such as onboarding/offboarding workflows, SLA management, and periodic health checks to maintain long-term system stability.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives by analyzing incident trends, user feedback and platform telemetry to recommend platform upgrades, process changes or technical refactors.
- Collaborate closely with data engineers, architects and security teams to ensure integrations and solutions align with enterprise data models, master data management and security policies.
- Act as a subject matter expert for assigned business applications, advising product owners, project managers and business stakeholders on platform capabilities, trade-offs and roadmaps.
- Participate in vendor evaluations, proof-of-concepts and technology selection activities to recommend the best-fit solutions aligned to business strategy and total cost of ownership.
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.
- Provide on-call rotation support for critical production incidents and coordinate emergency releases when required.
- Mentor junior engineers and business analysts on platform best practices, coding standards and integration patterns.
- Assist procurement and contract negotiations by documenting technical requirements and evaluating vendor SLAs.
- Stay current with platform roadmaps, new features and security advisories; propose pilot projects or upgrades to leverage new capabilities.
- Standardize configuration patterns and reusable components to accelerate delivery across multiple projects and business units.
- Conduct periodic license reviews and optimization to ensure cost efficiency and compliance with vendor contracts.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- Strong experience configuring and administering enterprise SaaS platforms such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, SAP Cloud, Oracle Cloud or Microsoft Dynamics 365.
- Proficient with Microsoft Power Platform (Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI) and other low-code/no-code development environments.
- Practical experience building and maintaining integrations using REST and SOAP APIs, middleware (MuleSoft, Dell Boomi, Informatica), JSON/XML processing, and OAuth/SAML authentication.
- Solid SQL skills for writing complex queries, joins, performance tuning, and working with relational databases (Postgres, MySQL, SQL Server).
- Experience with data migration, ETL processes and tools, data mapping, reconciliation, and master data management.
- Familiarity with scripting languages such as JavaScript, Python, or C# for custom logic, triggers, or automation tasks.
- Knowledge of CI/CD and DevOps practices for application configuration, metadata deployment, and automated testing in enterprise environments.
- Experience creating dashboards and reports in Power BI, Tableau, or Looker to surface KPIs and operational metrics.
- Understanding of security and compliance practices for enterprise applications, including RBAC, SSO, encryption and logging.
- Experience with Agile methodologies, backlog management, and tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, or Trello.
- Comfortable with application lifecycle management across sandbox/dev/test/prod and release orchestration.
- Familiarity with ITSM processes and tools (ServiceNow, Jira Service Management) for incident/problem/change management.
Soft Skills
- Strong stakeholder management and communication skills—able to translate technical concepts to non-technical business partners and build consensus.
- Analytical problem solver with attention to detail and ability to perform root cause analysis under pressure.
- Project-focused mindset with demonstrated ability to manage priorities, scope and delivery timelines across multiple initiatives.
- Collaboration and cross-functional teamwork skills; comfortable working with product owners, architects, data teams and vendors.
- Customer-centric orientation with a focus on user experience, adoption and continuous improvement.
- Adaptability and a growth mindset to learn new platforms quickly and apply best practices.
- Clear documentation and training skills to create runbooks, knowledge articles and user guides.
- Proactive ownership and accountability for application health, performance and continuous delivery.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, Business Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Education:
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in a technical discipline, or relevant certifications such as Salesforce Administrator/Platform Developer, Microsoft Certified: Power Platform App Maker, ServiceNow System Administrator, Workday HCM Certification, or relevant cloud certifications.
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Computer Science
- Information Systems
- Software Engineering
- Business Technology / MIS
- Data Analytics
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range: 3 - 8+ years working with enterprise business applications, integrations and automation.
Preferred: 5+ years of progressive experience in a Business Applications or Integration role with demonstrable projects in CRM/ERP implementation, API integrations, data migrations, and low-code development. Experience in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, or enterprise) and working with security/compliance frameworks is a plus.