Career paths uncovered 🔍

Morning. This is Better BA. A practical newsletter for business analysts that gets straight to the point.

We won’t give you pointless buzzword sentences like ‘Employing an integrated paradigm of predictive analytics synergised with agile frameworks’ 🤮 If that sentence really gets you going, then you’re probably in the wrong place.

Lets get to it

INSIGHT
BA Career Paths - Explained

July 2017. I landed my first Junior BA role. One year later I moved into a Mid Level BA role. Then I had a realisation..

There’s so many similar roles I could jump into from here! Is it me, or do all BAs ponder these questions at this point in their career? ⬇️

• ‘Maybe I should focus more on the technical stuff?’

• ‘I really like wire framing.. maybe I should move into design?’

• ‘Project Management? I sort of unofficially do that role anyway!'

Here’s a taste of the some of the common paths taken

Key takeaways

• BAs usually have some sort of domain experience before moving into the role. And ‘technical’ BAs often have an engineering background. This isn’t a hard rule, though.

• There’s a lot of opportunity to move ‘sideways’!

• Opportunities differ between roles. Obviously! Consider this strongly if deciding to specialise in a less common role (E.g., Product Owner for niche software platform vs general Project Manager)

• You’ll undoubtedly move into more ‘Strategic’ roles as you gain experience. Think about whether you want to be more of a ‘Business’ or ‘Technology’ leader in the future when considering a change in role.

WISDOM

'Feedback can be hard to take, but practicing it often 
and early is part of the process to get your team’s best work out the door.'

MEMES