Business Analyst, Feeds

Job Purpose

ICE Fixed Income and Data Services (IDS), a leading provider of financial market data, has an opening in a team of highly specialized real-time market data specialists who support the real-time feeds and desktop business verticals.

The individuals on this team acquire and maintain a detailed understanding of Exchange and other 3rd party market data “raw” feeds, and the associated market conventions for those sources. This knowledge will then be applied to produce the business requirements documents which will be used by the technology team to write software which consumes and normalizes the market data into IDS’s standard data model.

The individuals on this team are expected to be the “go to” people for all questions regarding the “raw” feed technical specifications, how they are translated into IDS’s standard data model, and the local market conventions which drive those decisions. The individuals will be responsible for both establishing rules for new feeds as well as articulating requirements for changes to existing feeds as they arise. Team members also interact with client facing staff, and sometimes directly interact with clients, in order to determine exact requirements for enhancements and modifications to existing data presentations.

Responsibilities

• Understanding Market Data Conventions - Achieve deep understanding of the market conventions for each relevant data source (market conventions include such things as how instruments are traded, special trading conditions that can occur and how they impact various derived data such as VWAPs, daily highs and lows, etc., trading units, minimum trade sizes, etc.). Market Data Conventions must be understood from the perspective of the provider (exchange), the vendor (IDS), and the customer.
• Writing Content Requirements - Review new or modifications to feed specifications provided by the Exchange or 3rd party source and translate such specifications into detailed and documented business rules for the Development team to implement. Such rules include mapping of incoming fields to the IDS data model, defining appropriate rules/business logic for correctly calculating derived data such as VWAPs, highs/lows, normalizing trade condition codes into the IDS global standard, and defining how fields need to be presented to customers (e.g., ensuring proper scaling of numbers).
• Ownership of Requirements - Ensuring all requirements, both new and changes, are reviewed, acknowledged, and properly handed off to the appropriate technology and business teams as quickly as possible.
• Monitoring for Changes - Monitoring exchange and 3rd party source change notifications and ensuring that tickets are immediately raised and analyzed for impact to accommodate the change.
• Content QA Support - Working with content QA teams to ensure any new/changed data is appropriately tested to ensure compliance with the business rules defined by this individual in the aforementioned requirements documentation.

Knowledge and Experience

• Detail oriented
• Excellent verbal and written English language skills
• Ability to read and understand technical specifications provided by Exchanges and other 3rd party sources
• Prior experience working for a market data vendor, specifically in the area of real-time data feed processing, either as a business analyst or a content specialist. Ability to explain challenges with respect to ingest and normalization of real-time market data.
• Ability to acquire detailed knowledge of market trading rules and conventions for various Exchange and other 3rd party / OTC venues through independent research, networking amongst internal and external peers, industry forums, reference materials provided by the Exchanges and other 3rd parties, etc.
• Ability to create well written, concise and comprehensive business requirement documents which clearly define how Development should implement support for a new or modified market data feed such that it conforms to the IDC defined data model standards and any and all relevant local market rules and conventions.

Preferred Knowledge and Experience

• Deep knowledge of ‘raw’ exchange feeds across at least one geography but preferably across multiple geographies. Global knowledge is best in class. Expertise in C&E markets is a plus.
• Experience in quality assurance in either software or content products
• Knowledge of financial services, data vendors, end user customer firms
• Bachelor’s or equivalent university degree
• Multi-lingual