Senior Business Analyst

About this role

Ciklum is looking for a Senior Business Analyst to join our team full-time in Bulgaria.
We are a custom product engineering company that supports both multinational organizations and scaling startups to solve their most complex business challenges. With a global team of over 4,000 highly skilled developers, consultants, analysts and product owners, we engineer technology that redefines industries and shapes the way people live.
About the role:
As a Senior Business Analyst, to join our cross-functional development team. In this role, you will be at the forefront of building an innovative, next-generation fintech platform designed to redefine how users interact with digital financial services. We are focused on engineering a robust, high-performance solution that empowers users with seamless, real-time access to transaction services, secure, modern banking ecosystems, and global payment capabilities.
Responsibilities:

• End-to-End BA Ownership: Plan, estimate, and execute Business Analysis activities across all SDLC stages, managing requirements from initial ideation through to final acceptance and ongoing maintenance

• Payment-related Feature Definition: Define business needs and core objectives for critical payment workflows, checkout features, and transaction processing

• Scope & Backlog Ownership: Manage the product backlog from definition through execution, perform backlog prioritisation and refinement, contribute directly to the solution roadmap, and tightly manage the solution scope to prevent scope creep

• Process Modelling: Model requirements and technical workflows by using the most applicable notation, specifically UML and BPMN, tailored to complex financial interactions

• Framework Design: Define Business Analysis approaches and processes from scratch, establish high-quality Information Architecture for project documentation, ensure overall requirements quality, and define clear change management procedures

• User-Centric Collaboration: Partner closely with Product Managers, Product Designers, and User Researchers utilising customer journey mapping to deliver coherent, high-impact payment experiences

• Agile Facilitation: Collaborate closely with the development team, lead and facilitate Agile ceremonies, ensuring delivery methodology effectiveness and focus on business value

• Stakeholder Management: Secure strong stakeholder engagement, establish and drive effective collaboration frameworks across all participating business and technical groups

Requirements:
Domain & Payments Specialisation:

• Financial Domain Expertise: Proven experience in the financial industry, with a mandatory specialisation in digital banking and payments systems

• POS & Terminal Systems: Experience with card/payment terminals, MPOS and SoftPOS would be advantageous

• Payment Gateways & Integrations: Deep experience analysing and documenting integrations with third-party Payment Service Providers (PSPs), acquiring banks, or international payment gateways (e.g., Stripe, Adyen, PayPal)

• Transaction Lifecycle Knowledge: Strong understanding of end-to-end payment processing, including authorisation, capture, clearing, settlement, and ledger reconciliation

• Alternative Payment Methods (APMs): Hands-on experience defining requirements for digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay), instant peer-to-peer (P2P) transfers, or Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services

• Compliance & Standards: Practical understanding of payment security regulations and compliance standards (such as PCI-DSS, PSD2/PSD3, KYC/AML frameworks) and strong customer authentication (SCA)

Regional Market Expertise (at least one of them):

• US Payment Ecosystem: Deep understanding of the US multi-rail payment infrastructure, including real-time rails (FedNow, The Clearing House RTP), clearing house mechanisms (ACH, Same-Day ACH), and wholesale clearing systems (Fedwire, CHIPS). Practical familiarity with US regulatory oversight bodies (FRB, CFPB, FinCEN) and compliance requirements (Regulation E, Bank Secrecy Act/AML)

• EU Payment Ecosystem & Regulations: Comprehensive knowledge of European payment frameworks, with a strong focus on the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR / SEPA Instant), ISO 20022 standard migrations (including structured postal address criteria), and evolving open finance directives (PSD2/PSD3, PSR, and FiDA)

Core Business Analysis Capabilities:

• Lifecycle Setup: Comprehensive experience in setting up Business Analysis processes and approaches across elicitation, decomposition, modelling, documentation, traceability, prioritisation, and change management

• Lifecycle Management: Vast experience in setting up requirements lifecycle management alongside high proficiency in requirements documentation, structure definition, and template creation

• Phase Leadership: Proven experience in Pre-sales and Discovery phases, maintaining full ownership of BA tasks and deliverables

• AI Tool Integration: Experience in selecting, configuring, and applying AI-powered tools to accelerate BA deliverables without compromising quality

• AI Innovation Mindset: Readiness to continuously explore emerging AI capabilities and embed them into BA workflows to shorten analysis cycles, improve clarity, and enhance traceability across the delivery lifecycle

• Technical Modelling: Advanced skills in UML and BPMN modelling with the agility to shift approaches based on project context

• Methodology Mastery: Deep expertise in BA techniques, best practices, and flexible Agile product delivery

Desirable:

• Architecture: Solid knowledge of major architectural types (such as microservices, API-led connectivity, or event-driven financial systems)

• Databases: Practical experience in working with main database types and writing database/SQL queries to validate transaction structures

• AI Product Development: Technical understanding or practical experience in developing AI-based features and AI-driven products (e.g., predictive analytics,…