Job Market Analysis for Technical Business Analysts

This paper analyzes the job market for technical business analysts, including their role, required skills, challenges, and expected earnings. It also provides insights for employers looking to hire technical business analysts.

Running head: JOB MARKET ANALYSIS FOR TECHNICAL BUSINESS ANALYSTS
JOB MARKET ANALYSIS FOR TECHNICAL BUSINESS ANALYSTS
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

2JOB MARKET ANALYSIS FOR TECHNICAL BUSINESS ANALYST
Introduction
A technical business analyst has the same expectations as a business analyst except this
individual is required to have in addition a knowledge of the technical IT aspects and coding
skills as well.
They are typically found in the IT industry and deal with not only the business strategy
but also product development such that the process is optimized. They are to coordinate with the
project leads and clients and work in development and testing in light of how the products could
and would impact the business.
Any employer looking to hire an individual for a role ought to understand the basic
qualities that would ensure that the individual could meet the requirements of the role. To do so
it is also necessary to understand the challenges that they may face and scrutinize them on those
points. This paper addresses this problem, as in, what are the challenges faced by a technical
analyst, what his role is and what to look for while hiring one. Additionally it addresses what is
the expected earnings of one employed as one.
Background
The fundamental skills required for the role are more or less the same as that for any
business analyst. The person who is given the designation of Business Analyst in an organization
serves the role of being the intermediary between the organization that he or she is working for
and the client for the particular project that he or she is involved in (coreconsulting.com.au
2012).
Technical Business analysts are expected to thrive in a collaborative environment for
problem solving where they work with the technical team and clients to come up with a solution

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which is both technically and from a business perspective acceptable and viable. Thus they ought
to have all round perspective of the problem from user end, business end as well as technical end
(Jobs.lever.co 2018). In relation to the problem solving skill requirement, it is also necessary for
the individual to be able to research and study the specific situation in detail to approach the
problem and investigate viability of solutions as well as be aware of current and upcoming
trends. Again, it is then expected that it is essential for the technical business analyst to
communicate effectively with the technical team and clients to serve his role as intermediary. He
should be precise, expressive and an effective listener to be able to understand what is being said
on both ends (innovergent.com 2012). Communication is hence very important. Furthermore, the
job role requires the individual to be involved in projects from the initial stage and participate in
the strategic development. Therefore there must be an understanding of project management and
this requirement is reflected in job descriptions for the post (Jobs.lever.co 2018).
They are ‘expected’ to be able to speak confidently to audiences from both technical and
business domain with authority. Additionally, data driven business analysis today relies on
information systems to maintain records and relay information therefore knowledge of database
is also fundamental (coreconsulting.com.au 2012). Although coding may not be required on
daily basis, knowledge of basic coding language is expected along with knowledge of software
testing methods. The development of solution in a project is done via a development
methodology, such as ‘Waterfall model’, ‘Rapid application development’, ‘Agile Software
Development’ and so on. Practical knowledge of these methodologies is required for any
technical business analyst in order to work out the process that would best suit the project, and
how to conduct the process overall in light of the business constraints and expectations (Deloitte
2018). Any business analyst needs to have a keen understanding of the practicalities,

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developments and opportunities in their respective domains. They need to understand the
workings in the domain to guide the client and team in the favorable direction. A technical
business analyst in the IT industry is therefore expected to be able to keep up with the trends and
developments in their field to integrate the development process with the business in a
meaningful way. Some of the requirements that are typically observed nowadays are knowledge
of cloud based technology and big data which have lot of opportunity for technical business
analysts.
The technical business analyst is a part of the business team although they are to bridge
the gap between the technology team. In order to do so, they need to draw information from
team, clients and related entities for the purpose of scrutiny and problem solving, that is,
brainstorm, engage in interviews and extract meaningful insights, facts and ideas. Most of the
companies list this expectation. However the most fundamental role for a person in this role is
often documentation. Documentation related to framework limitations, customization and
API/Module/Plugin core issues are expected to be addressed by the technical business analyst.
This can only be done by someone who understands the technicalities of the process as well as
the workings of the business. Documentation of use cases, user stories, and business requirement
is also expected to be done by them. The individual must be adept at BI tools such as Tableau,
Qlikview or at least MS Excel (innovergent.com 2012). A technical business analyst is also
expected to participate in decision making boards and meetings to discuss issues such as change
control, requirement prioritization, planning and implementation discussions, finalization of plan
and approach among many others. Creative acumen whereby one could think up out of the box
innovative solutions to problems is also something that is known to be valued. Finally, the
individual must be able to tackle the problem using investigative, logical approach, logical

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thinking in the order of developing an understanding, visualizing and analyzing the problem and
subsequently validation of the solution.
A technical business analyst is expected to earn $95,325 AUD per year in Australia in
2018, as per Glassdoor. The tenth percentile pay is $73,000 AUD and ninetieth percentile pay is
$138,000 AUD (Glassdoor.com.au 2018).
Discussion
Having gone through job descriptions for the post of technical business analyst as published
by the various companies such as Google, Amazon, among others I found that it is expected that
this person would serve to be a ‘conduit’ between technology and business. The skills include,
analytical, managerial and technical skills in IT, coding skills, knowledge of database
management such as MS Access, Oracle or MySQL, and in software testing algorithms such as
waterfall model and agile software development. Therefore, it is usually desirable that a person
with a prior background in IT who has cultivated domain expertise and now is looking into
venturing into business side is considered for the position. Communication and business acumen
is also necessary as well as decision making skills. They should be able to conduct independent
research and participate in collaborative projects. A typical business analyst earns around 95K on
an average in 2018 in Australia.
Conclusion
A technical business analyst is therefore a job role primarily found in the IT industry. The
individuals need to have strong analytical and managerial capability as well as keen
understanding of the IT industry in addition to being well versed in the technical knowledge of
IT. Analytics being a growing field and IT one of the biggest industries which has been pushing

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data driven business is today has resulted in more companies realizing the significance of the
role, creating considerable demand.

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References
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