Senior Business Analyst – Manufacturing Automation

Summary

Valore Partners is seeking a Senior Business Analyst to support a manufacturing automation initiative for a leading manufacturer in the Phoenix area on a contract basis. This role sits at the intersection of business analysis, QA/validation support, and delivery ownership: you'll gather and document requirements directly from plant-floor stakeholders and subject matter experts, help drive multiple automation software releases forward on a defined timeline, and scope additional automation opportunities in the same production area. This is not a heads-down documentation seat, the client needs someone senior enough to work through ambiguity independently, build credibility with engineers and operations personnel, and keep releases moving in a regulated manufacturing environment.

A world-class Software Engineering firm, delivering bulletproof software transformation since 2005!

You’ll thrive with us if you value

• Diligence: Results oriented with a focus on successful delivery, all while navigating moving obstacles and challenges.
• Pacesetting: Working alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry.
• Leadership: Creating a lasting positive impact from day one, working on large-scale and highly visible projects.
• Valiance: Digitally transforming some of the largest and most high-profile companies in the Phoenix area.
• Partnership: Achievers that thrive in a collaborative culture and who believe in the importance of realizing a shared goal.

Here's what you can expect from us

• Top Compensation: Demonstrating our respect for your unique and specialized skills.
• Continuous Training: We support a culture of continuous learning, keeping you up to date on the latest tech.
• Flexibility: We believe in a truly human approach to work and life, allowing our team members to focus on what matters most to them.
• Collaboration: Join a group of thought leaders and trusted advisors who have a passion for solving business problems with the use of technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Elicit, define, and document requirements of all types for automation software releases supporting new manufacturing equipment, working directly with plant stakeholders, process engineers, and subject matter experts on the production floor.
• Work through ambiguity: structure loosely defined needs into documented processes, user stories, functional specifications, process flows, and diagrams that developers can build against.
• Drive release delivery forward. Track decisions, chase open items, build consensus among stakeholders, and recap direction so momentum isn't lost between meetings.
• Conduct requirements discovery for additional automation processes in the same production area, including current-state (manual) process documentation as a baseline.
• Assess existing solutions and prior work to inform reuse-versus-build decisions, partnering with client-side technical experts.
• Support QA and validation activities appropriate to a regulated manufacturing environment, including testable acceptance criteria, requirements traceability, test plans, and validation-ready documentation.
• Tie strategic business objectives to project work, quickly demonstrating detailed understanding of the client's operations and helping determine solutions to problems.
• Conduct and facilitate project meetings, from large group sessions to one-on-one SME interviews, including whiteboarding and developing visuals for the audience.
• Ramp up quickly on client-specific automation platforms with support from internal client experts.

Required Skills

• 5+ years of business analysis experience, including direct work with technical project teams and key client stakeholders to develop and manage requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn unfamiliar business processes, elicit requirements independently, and communicate takeaways clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Experience in manufacturing, industrial automation, or similarly operations-heavy environments. Comfortable working on or near a production floor.
• Sufficient software/technical fluency to translate operational requirements into build-ready specifications and hold credible conversations with developers about implementation approach.
• Experience with QA practices: developing testing requirements, end-user test plans, and quality assessments.
• Experience across SDLC methodologies (Agile/Scrum, iterative, waterfall) and an understanding of change management and the BA's role.
• Senior-level presence: self-directed, comfortable with compressed timelines, and able to produce value quickly with minimal oversight.

Bonus Skills

• Experience in regulated environments — medical device, FDA/GxP, or semiconductor manufacturing — including validation documentation and change control.
• Familiarity with MES, equipment integration, automated optical inspection (AOI), or wafer/semiconductor processing operations.
• Prior exposure to manufacturing automation platforms or equipment automation frameworks.
• Experience with Azure DevOps (TFS) and JIRA.
• Certified ScrumMaster or equivalent Agile certification.
• Prior consulting or client-facing services delivery experience.