Job Title
Senior Data Analyst
Location
McLean, VA
Local candidates only – no relocation
Schedule
Onsite
Type
W2 Contract Only
Long-term contract (~19 months, possible direct opportunities)
Pay Rate
$55–65/Hr W2
Summary
We are seeking a Senior Data Analyst to support advanced transaction data analysis and merchant attribution efforts. This role focuses on analyzing large volumes of raw card transaction data, developing complex pattern-matching logic, and ensuring high-precision merchant mapping through data-driven rule creation and validation. The ideal candidate is highly analytical, detail-oriented, and experienced in SQL-based analysis and unstructured data parsing.
Key Responsibilities
- Analyze raw card transaction data to identify transaction patterns, noise, and merchant-specific identifiers across eligible merchants
- Develop and maintain complex Regex patterns and rule-based logic to accurately map unstructured transaction strings to merchant entities
- Use SQL to monitor transaction volumes and performance metrics, identifying anomalies that indicate changes in merchant naming conventions or logic failures
- Perform false-positive impact analysis to ensure mapping logic maintains high precision while preserving transaction coverage
- Document authoritative mapping rules and pattern logic to ensure transparency, maintainability, and team-wide understanding
- Manage quarterly update cycles by analyzing the impact of merchant list changes on existing logic and infrastructure
- Establish and execute repeatable QA validation processes using historical datasets prior to production deployment
- Identify and escalate data integrity issues or inconsistencies in raw transaction feeds that could drive downstream errors
- Conduct root-cause analysis on missing or dropped transactions by querying raw data and refining existing logic as merchant behavior evolves
Required Qualifications
- Strong experience analyzing large, unstructured datasets
- Advanced SQL skills for data querying, validation, and anomaly detection
- Hands-on experience writing and maintaining complex Regex logic
- Proven ability to perform detailed data quality analysis and root-cause investigation
- Strong documentation skills to clearly explain logic, decisions, and outcomes
- Ability to manage multiple workstreams and iterative rule updates in a production environment
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working with financial or card transaction data
- Background in merchant data attribution or transaction normalization
- Familiarity with QA validation methodologies for large-scale data environments
- Experience supporting long-term, rule-based data platforms in an enterprise setting
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