Application Support Analyst

At NRG, we're bringing the power of energy to people and organizations by putting customers at the center of everything we do. We generate electricity and provide energy solutions and natural gas to millions of customers through our diverse portfolio of retail brands. A Fortune 500 company, operating in the United States and Canada, NRG delivers innovative solutions while advocating for competitive energy markets and customer choice, working towards a sustainable energy future. More information is available at www.nrg.com . Connect with NRG on Facebook, LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter @nrgenergy.

This position is governed by a local union contract.

Support, design, develop, maintain and enhance NRG's retail costing, pricing, forecasting, risk management, and reporting systems for mass markets and C&I customer load. Interface with clients to determine application support needs, requirements, resolve issues and determine cost estimates. Provide subject matter expertise to Retail Risk, Load Forecasting and Marketing groups in order to assist with problem solving and as a resource for training development.

Essential Duties/Responsibilities:

• Support, design, develop, maintain and enhance energy based retail market application programs working within a team-oriented environment using various development toolsets.
• Monitor Production Support email boxes for user issues and work to resolve the issue or reach out to Development teams for support
• Support SOX controls, testing and audits.
• Coordinate application requests, prioritization and business communication.
• Facilitate requirements gathering efforts and clearly document system requirements.
• Development of prototypes/proofs of concept to validate key project assumptions prior to making significant investments.
• Documentation of design specifications.
• Ensure the successful transition from development to operations including operations procedures and tools such as process control points, reports, and automated monitoring.
• Regularly report status and raise issues/risks as appropriate. Anticipate and adjust for problems and roadblocks while eliminating roadblocks within control.
• Collaborate with team members and operational groups to identify and prioritize/reprioritize work when necessary.
• Develop strong working relationships with individuals at all levels of company, operations, and IT applications and infrastructure teams.
• Willingness to work hours as necessary, especially during critical issue resolution and milestone time periods.

• Develop string test scripts in order to test a group of related functionality.
• Interact with external entities: vendors, service providers and product vendors.
• Interfaces with IT application owners and the IT organization in order to provide technical solutions to meet user needs. Escalates or resolves conflicts, as needed.
• Helps identify and recommend options, risks and alternatives to deliver a robust and stable infrastructure.
• Devises or modifies procedures to solve problems considering computer equipment capacity and limitations, operating time, form of desired results, and integration of components.
• Assists in researching, evaluating, specifying and coding the configuration of hardware and/or software for application's environment.
• Requires skill and proficiency in many technical functions and ability to integrate across disciplines.
• Remain abreast of current technologies and best practices that may be applicable to the company.

Working Conditions:

• Team work environment in cube or open work area including a trade floor environment.
• Duties are performed during standard business hours, but work outside normal business hours may be necessary based on project requirements.
• Willingness to work outside normal business hours as necessary, especially during critical issue resolution and to achieve project milestones.

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering or relevant business discipline from an accredited four-year college or university or equivalent work experience.

Preferred Qualifications:

• A minimum of 5 to 8 years technical experience
• Retail application configuration and testing experience. Experience working with end users, taking their business problems and translating them into system requirements. Experience evaluating user change requests and obtains approval to make modifications. Experience participating in project planning sessions with team members to analyze business and technical requirements. Experience conducting unit testing to ensure application meets specifications.

Additional Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Retail market application support, design, and development experience for custom / vendor application development environment with increasing levels of responsibility. Technologies include:
  • PL/SQL for Oracle
  • Java (J2SE/J2EE), Java Server Pages (JSP), Web Services, XML/XSLT/HTML
  • Linux and MS Server environments
  • Data Modeling
  • Python development with FLASK framework that leverages Rest API extensions like Restful and SQLAlchemy
  • Web development experience with Angular JS, Spring, Git, Docker containers, Maven, and Hibernate
  • Exposure to older Java technologies like JSF, Java 6, Applets, and Ant
  • Exposure to middleware (preferably Rabbit MQ)

• Understanding of Relational Database concepts (sql, pl/sql).
• Experience with and detailed knowledge of vendor retail market systems such as Siebel, CCS billing systems, etc.
• Experience with custom retail costing/pricing and forecasting systems.
• Experience with energy business and systems that support retail energy.
• Knowledge of Software Configuration Management discipline and systems change management processes.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills are required in order to provide appropriate cross functional support and interaction.
• Creation and delivery of presentations on business and technical topics.
• Works effectively in a team environment.
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem resolution skills.
• Detail oriented, self-starter with strong interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work well under pressure, remaining focused and calm in the face of distractions, changing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Ability to productively use NRG's toolset - MS Office Applications, MS Outlook, MS Project, Visio,Edge.

• Flexibility, dedication, and team-spirit are required.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills.
• Proven understanding of Unix/Linux operating system.

Physical Requirements:

• Ability to attend meetings either remotely or in person and respond to application problems as needed.

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NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability

EEO is the Law Poster(The poster can be found at http://www.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf )

Official description on file with Talent.

Nearest Major Market: Houston