Any Business Analysts Here?

Is there possibility to move to a business analyst role with your current employer? That would probably be the easiest route.

You'll always have a job in project management and it pays well if you're up for it. Always a fresh project to move onto and to step away from the previous.

There is also the BSA (Business Systems Analyst) role that is more technical than a BA, which might also be a good transition as well from a dev role.

Most programmers are introverts.

Most business analysts are extroverts.

As long as you are not shy, have good presentation skills, and abit of analytical skills, you can become BA within the company you currently work for. Hopefully your company encourages lateral career move.

OR... get a scrum master certification/product owner certification. Become a product manager. Easier for you to understand technical/design side of things. Only need to improve your business side skills.

It is lateral move to business side from development. Why don’t you try Project Managements, it is vertical move. I would move up to senior role like team lead. Do you feel learning/doing something new. BA is not for everyone.

xiaobao wrote: ↑ interesting, would getting a BA cert be good for a role like that or does it have it's own certs?

I will check indeed to see how many current openings are for BSA.

Sorry, no idea. My guess, just like most roles, they will have their own certs. Good BSAs just like BAs are hard to find.

I transitioned from a Data Analyst to a BA role like 10 years ago within the same company -- just a natural switch (you know the organization's systems and data well already, now try your hand at this). So if you can do it within your current company, that's the best place to start. If you can get them to pay for a continuing education certificate course or a virtual classroom course towards your ECBA (Watermark Learning is pretty good), then that's even better as they're way better options than these "training video" type classes.

I am just not sure a course or certification alone will help you without having to take a step down in pay into a junior role, as an employer would be "taking a risk" with you. It's a key role and takes a while to get good at it.

I currently hold a CBAP cert and PSPO (Product Owner cert -- another popular option that more companies are trending towards instead of BA, sort of like a combo of Account/PM/BA if I could describe it in a few words). There are "lower" roles in that stream such as Product Analyst and a "higher" role like Product Manager.

As someone who went the other way, BA > Dev, I think your putting far to much emphasis on traditional schooling and certs. BA or the technical equivalent - BSA, do not require certs. I'd have a look at various job descriptions at the banks, insurance companies and related, certs are not a bar. If you enjoy the social aspect of integrating with multiple teams, laying out requirements, planning scope, a BSA or PM role would be great. Mind you, PM roles carry their own respective baggage as you have to deal with both stakeholders, internal management, and the team, so be prepared to handle that political realm. If you enjoy the technical side more, have you though about Solution Architect? There considered pre-sales / post-sales roles within a Professional Services division for cloud providers or other related technologies. That could be a great stepping stone if you want to work on solution design, mapping out infrastructure and your dev skills would play a good asset to the role. Internally for companies, these can be referred to as Technical or Enterprise architects.

I agree that BA/BSA certification is bs. It's a way for those programs/institutions to make money; similar to how basically every PM will tell you that a PMP certification is bs. If anything, just take a course or 2 in BA instead of worrying about the certification if you want more theoretical experience/knowledge.

From your technical skillset, you should have no problem moving into a BSA role; it would take a while before you move onto a fully fledge BA (business side) unless you learn things very quickly. I'd imagine you'd have quite a lot of experience interacting with your BA/BSA so you will already know some of the stuff they do.

However, if you move from a sr. Dev to a BA/BSA role, you might be looking at a step down in compensation.

Is staying within the technical realm something that you don't want to do? There are other roles such as solutions/technical architects like @toad99 mentioned. PM role is also something worth exploring, but it's not a job that everyone can do well. Your technical experience will help you here because you can start off being an IT/technical PM.

Why would you switch to a less technical role that will pay less? Improve your coding skills and get into a big tech firm where you can keep moving up through tech.

There's a Bunsiness Analyst role (HERE) with the Toronto District School Board.

There's also a semi Dev role (HERE) which may move you into a different technical direction instead of pure devlopment, also with the TDSB.

Walch1102 wrote: ↑ Why would you switch to a less technical role that will pay less? Improve your coding skills and get into a big tech firm where you can keep moving up through tech.

OP already said they don't want to do it anymore and it's not clear that money is the main motivator here. Even so, while I agree the salary ceiling for most BA/Sr. BA roles is lower, you can reach a point where you're above 100k by a fair margin. And if OP is getting involved in more business and strategic decisions, it could open more doors for them (should they want to advance) to earn more.

ndrew029 wrote: ↑ OP already said they don't want to do it anymore and it's not clear that money is the main motivator here. Even so, while I agree the salary ceiling for most BA/Sr. BA roles is lower, you can reach a point where you're above 100k by a fair margin. And if OP is getting involved in more business and strategic decisions, it could open more doors for them (should they want to advance) to earn more.

Read between the lines (actually, he stated it outright, but you just missed it). He's saying he doesn't want to do it anymore because he's stuck. The key to upward mobility is not switching over to the business side, but going to a big company where tech IS their business.

Walch1102 wrote: ↑ Read between the lines (actually, he stated it outright, but you just missed it). He's saying he doesn't want to do it anymore because he's stuck. The key to upward mobility is not switching over to the business side, but going to a big company where tech IS their business.

Yeah, because there is only one way to achieve upward mobility, and that is doubling down on something you don't want to do when you have the freedom to explore a different path. Ok.

ndrew029 wrote: ↑ Yeah, because there is only one way to achieve upward mobility, and that is doubling down on something you don't want to do when you have the freedom to explore a different path. Ok.

Don't be sore because you totally missed the point. It's obvious OP just wants to get ahead (i.e. he doesn't care if he's doing it as a programmer or BA). I'm simply stating the most efficient way to do so.