Ascension is seeking a Senior Technical Analyst / Senior Computer Systems Analyst to provide advanced systems analysis, technical planning, application design, integration analysis, and implementation support for Montgomery County Public Schools.

The ideal candidate will be able to evaluate complex application environments, understand how business processes, data, software, interfaces, and infrastructure work together, and translate customer needs into clear technical requirements and practical implementation solutions. This individual will serve as a bridge among MCPS business stakeholders, application developers, database specialists, cybersecurity personnel, quality assurance teams, vendors, and project leadership.

This role is important because MCPS operates a large, diverse technology environment supporting students, educators, administrators, and business operations. The selected professional must be able to identify technical risks, resolve ambiguous requirements, assess system dependencies, and help MCPS implement reliable, secure, accessible, and maintainable systems.

Ascension is particularly interested in a candidate who is:

• Analytical, methodical, and attentive to technical and operational details.
• Comfortable working independently with limited supervision.
• Skilled at clarifying incomplete or conflicting requirements.
• Able to anticipate integration, data, security, and performance problems.
• Organized enough to manage multiple assignments, dependencies, and deadlines.
• Confident communicating with both technical personnel and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Capable of explaining complex system issues in clear, decision-oriented language.
• Committed to protecting student, employee, and institutional information.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Senior Technical Analyst will analyze system architecture, application functionality, interfaces, data requirements, technical specifications, implementation issues, and system performance. The position will support the analysis and design of complex applications and major system installations and may provide technical direction to development, integration, data, testing, and implementation teams.

The contractor will examine existing and proposed systems, document current and future-state requirements, evaluate technical alternatives, and recommend solutions that align with MCPS business objectives, security controls, privacy obligations, accessibility standards, and technology architecture.

Depending on the task order, the position may support enterprise platforms such as Oracle Fusion Cloud, Infor Lawson, student information systems, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Power Platform solutions, databases, web applications, APIs, business intelligence tools, or custom-developed applications. The analyst may also support legacy modernization, data conversion, system integration, cloud migration, workflow automation, quality assurance, and production-readiness assessments.

The RFP specifically identifies the Senior Computer Systems Analyst as a professional who provides technical direction for software development, analyzes complex applications, and prepares milestone and technical-status reports for major system installations. It requires a bachelor’s degree and at least eight years of complex application analysis and design experience, including experience with database management systems and multiple programming languages.

Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

• Analyze existing applications, business processes, system architectures, databases, interfaces, integrations, and technical dependencies.
• Elicit functional, technical, data, security, performance, accessibility, and operational requirements from MCPS stakeholders.
• Translate business needs into system requirements, use cases, process flows, interface definitions, data mappings, acceptance criteria, and technical specifications.
• Evaluate current-state systems and identify gaps, limitations, duplication, performance issues, security risks, and modernization opportunities.
• Develop current-state and future-state diagrams showing system components, interfaces, data movement, dependencies, and user interactions.
• Recommend technically feasible solutions that balance business value, security, accessibility, implementation complexity, maintainability, and cost.
• Provide technical direction and clarification to application developers, engineers, database specialists, testers, vendors, and implementation teams.
• Review proposed system designs, application configurations, database structures, APIs, integrations, and technical documentation for completeness and consistency.
• Analyze interface requirements between cloud-hosted, on-premises, third-party, and internally developed applications.
• Define data requirements, conversion rules, validation criteria, reconciliation procedures, and exception-handling processes.
• Support system modernization, application migration, data conversion, software implementation, integration, and deployment activities.
• Investigate system defects, performance degradation, data discrepancies, interface failures, and implementation issues.
• Perform root-cause analysis and coordinate corrective actions with the appropriate technical teams.
• Assess solution impacts across applications, databases, users, workflows, security controls, reporting processes, and support operations.
• Prepare alternatives analyses, decision papers, technical recommendations, risk assessments, and implementation-readiness findings.
• Develop milestone reports, technical-status reports, issue logs, risk registers, requirements traceability matrices, and implementation trackers.
• Facilitate requirements workshops, design reviews, technical working sessions, defect reviews, and implementation-readiness meetings.
• Coordinate with project managers to monitor scope, schedule, dependencies, risks, issues, decisions, and technical deliverables.
• Support functional, integration, regression, performance, load, stress, security, accessibility, and user-acceptance testing.
• Validate that implemented solutions satisfy approved requirements, technical specifications, security controls, and acceptance criteria.
• Document system configurations, workflows, interfaces, operating procedures, support procedures, and knowledge-transfer materials.
• Maintain version control, change history, decision records, and traceability across requirements and technical documentation.
• Ensure technical deliverables comply with MCPS privacy, security, data ownership, records-management, and accessibility requirements.
• Apply Agile, Scrum, DevOps, Waterfall, or hybrid delivery practices based on the requirements of the assigned task order.
• Prepare weekly productivity reports summarizing activities, deliverables, accomplishments, issues, risks, and hours worked, as required under the MCPS contract.

Problems the Position Is Expected to Address

The Senior Technical Analyst may be called upon to resolve or support:

• Incomplete, ambiguous, or conflicting system requirements.
• Poorly documented legacy applications.
• Misalignment between business processes and system functionality.
• Data-quality, data-mapping, and data-conversion problems.
• Failed or unreliable interfaces between enterprise systems.
• Application performance and scalability concerns.
• Security, privacy, role-based access, and identity-management issues.
• System implementations that do not fully satisfy user needs.
• Lack of traceability between requirements, design, testing, and deployment.
• Technical risks affecting schedule, cost, quality, or production readiness.
• Inconsistent technical documentation and configuration records.
• Accessibility barriers affecting users with disabilities.
• Communication gaps between program stakeholders and technical teams.
• Production defects requiring structured root-cause analysis.
• Modernization decisions involving legacy replacement, integration, cloud adoption, or workflow automation.

Anticipated Tools and Technologies

Actual tools will depend on the task order. Candidates should have experience with several of the following:

Systems and Requirements Analysis

• Microsoft Visio or comparable process-modeling tools
• Lucidchart or similar diagramming platforms
• Azure DevOps
• Jira and Confluence
• Requirements traceability matrices
• Use cases and user stories
• Business process models and workflow diagrams
• Data-flow and entity-relationship diagrams
• Interface-control documents
• Functional and technical design specifications

Enterprise and Application Technologies

• Oracle Fusion Cloud applications
• Oracle Integration Cloud
• Infor Lawson
• Student information systems
• Microsoft 365
• SharePoint
• Microsoft Power Platform
• ServiceNow
• Web-based and client-server applications
• REST and SOAP APIs
• Microservices architectures
• Single Sign-On and identity-management solutions

Data and Reporting

• SQL and relational database-management systems
• Oracle Database, SQL Server, or comparable platforms
• Data mapping and conversion tools
• Microsoft Excel
• Power BI or Tableau
• Data-validation and reconciliation methods
• ETL and data-integration concepts

Development and Testing

• Familiarity with two or more programming or scripting environments, such as Java, Python, .NET/C#, JavaScript, PowerShell, or SQL
• Git or comparable source-control systems
• CI/CD concepts and pipelines
• Test-management and defect-tracking tools
• Functional, integration, regression, performance, and user-acceptance testing methods