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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for User Account Analyst

💰 $60,000 - $95,000

IT OperationsIdentity & Access ManagementCybersecurityGovernance

🎯 Role Definition

The User Account Analyst is responsible for managing, auditing, and optimizing user account lifecycle processes across enterprise systems. This role plays a critical part in identity and access management (IAM), ensuring secure, compliant, and efficient access to applications, data, and infrastructure. User Account Analysts act as a bridge between IT security, HR, compliance, and business units, safeguarding organizational assets while enabling productivity.


📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • IT Support Specialist
  • Service Desk Analyst
  • Junior Systems Administrator

Advancement To:

  • Identity & Access Management (IAM) Analyst
  • Security Operations Analyst
  • IAM Engineer or Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Compliance Analyst
  • IT Risk or Governance Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Manage the full user account lifecycle including provisioning, modification, suspension, and deactivation across enterprise systems.
  • Administer user access in Active Directory, Azure AD, LDAP, and other directory services.
  • Ensure role-based access control (RBAC) and least-privilege principles are consistently enforced.
  • Process access requests and approvals in accordance with internal policies and regulatory requirements.
  • Conduct regular access reviews and user entitlement certifications.
  • Investigate and remediate access violations, orphaned accounts, and segregation-of-duties (SoD) conflicts.
  • Collaborate with HR to align user access with employee onboarding, offboarding, and role changes.
  • Maintain accurate documentation of account management procedures and access control standards.
  • Support internal and external audits by providing evidence of access controls and compliance activities.
  • Monitor privileged access and coordinate with security teams on high-risk accounts.
  • Utilize IAM tools to automate provisioning workflows and reduce manual effort.
  • Respond to access-related incidents and support security investigations.
  • Ensure compliance with standards such as SOX, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and SOC 2.
  • Analyze access patterns and recommend improvements to identity governance processes.
  • Manage service accounts and non-human identities according to security best practices.
  • Coordinate with application owners to define and maintain access roles.
  • Review and validate access for contractors, vendors, and third-party users.
  • Enforce password policies, MFA requirements, and authentication controls.
  • Track and report on access metrics, KPIs, and audit findings.
  • Stay current on IAM trends, security threats, and regulatory changes impacting user access.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • User account administration in Active Directory and Azure AD
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM) platforms (e.g., SailPoint, Okta, Saviynt)
  • Access governance and user entitlement reviews
  • Role-based access control (RBAC) design and enforcement
  • Audit support and compliance reporting
  • Privileged access management (PAM) concepts
  • Ticketing systems such as ServiceNow or Jira
  • Basic scripting (PowerShell, Python) for automation
  • Understanding of authentication methods, MFA, and SSO
  • Familiarity with security frameworks and compliance standards

Soft Skills

  • Strong attention to detail and accuracy
  • Clear written and verbal communication
  • Ability to handle sensitive and confidential information
  • Analytical and problem-solving mindset
  • Time management and prioritization in high-volume environments
  • Collaboration with cross-functional teams
  • Process-oriented and documentation-focused approach

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Cybersecurity, or Computer Science

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Information Technology
  • Cybersecurity
  • Computer Science

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
2–5 years in IT operations, IAM, or security-related roles

Preferred:
Experience supporting enterprise IAM programs in regulated or large-scale environments