Senior Functional Analyst

Job Description: Senior Functional Analyst

Department / Unit: I-ICT.211 Traffic Data Solutions

Experience Level: Senior / Expert (10+ years) On-call Duty (Standby): Required (approx. 1 week per month)

About the Role & Project Context

At Infrabel, you will take on a pivotal role in the functional and technical evolution of mission-critical software solutions. Joining the I-ICT.211 Traffic Data Solutions team, you will contribute to key projects essential for the continuity, reliability, and performance of Infrabel’s core railway business activities. These systems handle the end-to-end consolidation and distribution of rail traffic management data across all lifecycle phases (pre-processing, real-time, post-processing, and back-office) to key B2B stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• External Stakeholders: Railway undertakings operating or transiting on the Belgian network, neighboring foreign infrastructure managers, and European rail data consolidation bodies (such as RailNetEurope).
• Internal Stakeholders: Real-time timetable visualisations for signal box personnel, calculation and billing of track access charges, monitoring of operational traction electricity consumption, and data feeding into Big Data/expert systems.
• The scope covers both new application development and corrective/evolutionary maintenance of existing platforms.

Key Responsibilities & Tasks

As a Senior Functional Analyst, you will bridge the gap between business needs and technical implementation, collaborating closely with IT development teams, railway operators, and operational business units:

• Requirements Gathering & Analysis: Elicit, analyze, and document business needs and functional requirements using formal elicitation techniques.
• Process Optimization: Analyze existing operational and technical workflows and recommend improvements to increase accuracy and efficiency.
• Functional Specifications & Agile Artifacts: Produce comprehensive functional specifications, write detailed user stories, and maintain requirements traceability.
• Development Collaboration: Work side-by-side with developers and architects to ensure technical architectures and deliverables match business requirements.
• Testing & Validation: Formulate test strategies, design detailed test cases and scenarios, and perform validation testing to ensure software reliability and compliance.
• Impact Analysis: Conduct thorough impact analyses based on changing operational and business requirements.

Professional & Technical Experience

• Agile / Scrum Functional Analysis (Level 4): At least 10 years of experience in business and functional analysis within IT projects using Agile/Scrum.
• Requirements Elicitation (Level 4): At least 10 years of experience in business requirements gathering techniques.
• User Stories & Agile Documentation (Level 4): At least 10 years of experience creating user stories based on analysis and specifications.
• Design & Modeling (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience with UML and BPMN modelling techniques.
• Functional Documentation (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience authoring functional requirements documents, user guides, or operational work instructions.
• Test Case Definition (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience designing and executing test cases/test scenarios.
• Web Services & APIs (Level 3): At least 5 years of hands‑on experience with REST and SOAP web services.
• Messaging Middleware (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience with IBM MQ.
• Search & Analytics (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience with Elasticsearch & Kibana.
• Databases (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience with SQL and PL/SQL.
• Data Formatting & Schemas (Level 3): At least 5 years of experience with XML/XSD file formats and designing XSD contracts.
• Development Background (Level 2): At least 2 years of experience with .NET (a solid software development foundation is expected).
• Certifications: Certified Scrum Master (or equivalent Agile certification) is required/recognised.

Required Skills

• LanguagesDutch or French: C2 level (Native / highly proficient) in one of the two official languages.
• The second national language (Dutch or French): B1 level (Intermediate / working knowledge).
• English: C1 level (Professional / advanced working proficiency).

Preferred Skills

• Soft Skills & ValuesCompany Alignment: Understanding of Infrabel’s core mission, the railway IT landscape, and the operational challenges of traffic data management.
• Corporate Values: Embodying Infrabel’s corporate values: Care/Kindness (Bienveillance), Courage, Positivity, and Reliability.
• Interpersonal & Pr