Non-coding tech jobs - $100k+ Business Analyst role - Careers in Tech Episode 1
hey guys how you doing my name is tj and in this video i'm excited to introduce my new series called careers in tech where i'm going to be interviewing people that work in a lot of different roles within the tech industry now learning to code and becoming a software engineer is not the only way that you can transition into the tech industry and get a good paying job so in this first interview i'm gonna be sitting down with my friend jay as she tells us about her six figure business analyst job jay gets very candid about her pay and also walks us through different roles that she's had along the way and about how much she's been paid as well but first make sure to like and subscribe to my channel and feel free to comment below any questions that you have or just to show support hey jay how you doing okay awesome yourself and kind of you know telling us a bit about what you do yeah no problem so my name is jay chapel i'm originally from houston but currently residing in austin as a business analyst uh right now i'm working for a startup but i've worked for large companies medium-sized companies this is actually like my first year so jumping in the startup really yeah it's a completely different experience but cool okay that's awesome so i'm not sure if you know but my first job in austin was as a business analyst oh this should be really really interesting so yeah tell us i i guess can you kind of tell us what you actually do yeah so essentially like business analysts it kind of depends on the company and the challenges and the problems that they're solving so like i've had certain roles where i'm doing a lot of external analysis so we might have a client come in they want they give us their data they want to like find insights and value in the data they give us but i can also do that internally where our company is saying we want to improve a process but we want to be like data-driven so i look at the data find a way to create a process and make it better but like that data is my proof like hey this is if we increase this number by this or the pricing this way we might be able to have like this much okay interesting so this you're talking about data a lot yeah like it kind of almost sounds like you're describing a data in this type like what is the difference there well see what i found in my career that when i get business analyst roles it is also partially operations versus like data animals you will work with like data scientists data engineers and a lot of them have more of like a technical background versus business now it's kind of lives between like non-tech tech that's so interesting so back when i was working as a business analyst i was dealing with more social gathering requirements like oh the company wants to build this feature right this is what this feature needs to be able to do and this is what the users need to actually be able to accomplish right so me to me down in the requirements and you know doing mockups wireframing handing that to the engineers they build it and now we test those things to make sure that you know that the goal that we set out to achieve was around what they built yeah i can see that so that's different it seems different from what you're talking about yeah that sounds more like oh actually in the next question was it like a startup or was it it was a small company okay then yeah that's what i was saying it depends on the company company size so like when i worked at larger companies what you used to do sounds more like qa testing qa engineer slash product manager where you're gathering requirements and like wireframing i know how to low fidelity like not really big on my friends and my role is like analytics that's what i do and i like might be some business proposing business solutions and like data visualization and stuff like that okay so how did you get interested in this role anyways so background i actually went to school thinking i was gonna be pre-med okay yeah pharmacy pre-everything yeah so uh then i took o-chem organic chemistry i hated it i hated it so much but i really liked um i was a human development family science major and i really enjoyed like the research the analysis and we took like uh statistics and stuff like that i was like oh like this is all i want to do i don't want to be like just like working on the hospital thing and you know and so when i graduated i had a job as like a compliance analyst okay so still getting like that research it was not super into like uh data visualization but just like analyzing problem solving thinking cool and then uh being in austin the tech bubble like facebook had only been there for maybe like a few years like all these companies like oh what's this like what's going on in the tech world there every networking event was about to that's true and so i ended up um a recruiter and i just gave him emergency and i was like this is what i know how to do but i'm interested in this and i end up getting an interview for tech company and i didn't get the job but i reached out to the recruiter and i was like hey how can i gain this experience that's an indicator right so even if you apply for a role and you don't get that role try to follow if you can and i know that hiring managers don't always do a good job of getting back to you yeah to give you feedback but you just but you should still shoot your shot and try anyways you know you never know sorry no but that's what happened like i thought it was a like you know the generic like hey do your background it's like i'm just gonna take a chance and say like hey how can i get this like background how can i get this experience and that company ended up having like same role but contractor okay and so i i took the contractor role and the whole time that i was there i had access to like um i think at the time it was linda learning but i think it's linkedin learning now okay i would just stay behind and learn any and everything that i could learn uh and i think at the time i was interested in colors i was like i was gonna do this free coding thing and i was like i don't really like this but i still had access to like the learning tools and the people yeah and they knew like and so they kind of like well you should learn this okay you should look at this so i go to this youtube or like sign up for this course yeah and six years later awesome so here i guess uh what what our common miscon that people might have about what you do that you've heard about versus what you actually do yeah i think it's mostly just the misconception of tech like everyone knows yeah a misconception everyone knows that i work in tech so they're like oh you know how to code like oh you can build me a website oh you can i'm like i don't do that yeah i can point you in the different direction for that and uh but in my actual role i think that business analyst is so broad that there's some folks who think like oh you gather requirements oh you like you're writing python and you're using r and everything no but those type of roles within business analysts so even when i'm applying for a role i'm really looking at like okay is this what i know how to do and what are these type of problems like i know how to do this yeah so yeah if you're interested in business analysts like you really have to come through the job researching and ask the right questions i see to pretty much figure out what type of business analysis is looking for wow well here can you walk us through what a typical day in a life is like for you as a business analyst yeah so um like i said have operations have analysts so i could get a request like hey jay we need you to look at this data and build out a process to improve i don't know incremental revenue so what i'll do i'll go look at the data i'll look at what our current revenue is and so i'll do all the analytics stuff and once i have a process the operations parts keep saying because i'm creating the process documenting the process and then making sure that people are trained on like the changes that sounds like a lot of work it is but it's not as bad because like the cool thing about being a business analyst and just working with data you kind of given the freedom to like find insights so you sit in you do queries okay we're not doing a great job at tracking this if we were then we could blow a lot and you just test out the actual process okay and so that's what my day-to-day will look like or it might be can you like create a dashboard for this client and like this is what they want to see so i'll make like a dashboard some business or data visualization tools interesting are you are you using like a lot of powerpoint keynote because i i know you mentioned running some queries so are you using sql for that or like what type of tools and skills do you think that people in this role need to focus on sql definitely just not even for business analysts but once you start to learn sequels and build up like being comfortable with writing queries and you get like complex so many doors will open open for you and then in terms of like database visualization tools you have power bi tableau is really big honestly once you learn tableau all the rest of the moonlight makes sense um so sql and tableau so far looker is another what's up i think it's one of their competitors but very very similar and then um if the job requires writing confluence jira at lasting like that whole bubble of like writing documentation and knowing how to like put tables and links and stuff okay so having good writing skills is important in this world too as well yeah i would say it's super important because business analyst sits between tech and non-tech and so you have to be able to communicate and so that can be written and like i said the training part so like okay you need to create a deck of powerpoint google slides do you need to write out documentation or do you need to actually like train a group of folks on your new process so just all around being a great communicator like in terms of like hard skills outside sequel um and those are kind of really like the main two yeah because like when you write in sql queries you might use like maybe snowflake or your company might have their own thing but once you get like like your own tools yeah but once you know like the syntax and you have a deep understanding whatever they use you just look at it and you're like okay this is how y'all write things i know what this means so you also have to be a quick learner because you are going to be forced to learn on the dial to different tools yeah and quick learner because when you take a new role it's new data that you've never seen digging through tables doing just random queries to see like okay what lives in here and what doesn't because if they ask me to improve a process and we don't have the data then you have to go talk to like the data analyst or data engineer and say hey where is this and why are you captioning this okay this is so interesting to me because i i'm actually interested in this role this actually sounds fun because you are basically consulting based on data yeah like you are using data to help drive the direction that the company needs to go yeah you know oh that's actually kind of cool about that because for me i'm just like building stuff that's happening to me versus like actually dictating like okay even though you guys want this this is actually what the data is telling us works etc yeah so wow what is the most exciting or just the part that you enjoy about this role the most i really love the problem song and i'm a data geek you know a lot of what you just said like i get to create processes like i get to say this is what's gonna work i've looked i've been living in this like database for two weeks ears like my clothes here's all the information and folks are like all right okay because people can't really argue against you because arguing against you is arguing against their own data exactly and so with that like i do work a lot with product teams and engineers because like this is what the data says this is what the tool i like i'm not going to design it but this is what i think it should look like and like this is what these this is what the tool needs to like pull in like the data to do whatever wow so you also help inform how engineering teams build products yeah wow that's a lot of power for just one person to have it it is and that's what i'm saying like when you interview for business analyst roles you want to ask them like what problems or challenges like are you gonna want me to solve yeah because if it's not something interesting you're gonna hate it so you have to know about the product you have to know about the company you're like oh i'm actually not interested in like even looking at that data and like figuring out and it also lets you know if the data is a mess so i was like yeah yeah really really like have to access this wow okay well here so this sounds this sounds like a dream job so far even even like for me i'm sitting here i guess what is the most challenging aspects of you know of this role are just parts of this role that aren't necessarily so exciting um it can be challenging to like depending on the size of the company so like this is my first like scent and startup right and before you would throw out a decision and then they'll go through all these foods oh okay i don't know start a world is like yeah so you could be presenting this to like the ciara or ceo and stuff like that so that can be challenging because you have to also take into mind that this is their product and it's their baby it might be their first startup it's like you're proposing a decision and it's not always what they would want it's not in line with what bigness judy thought yeah and that can be a bit intimidating this is like hey like i know you're really going to build this but we're not in a space to like do that because like we don't have the data to promise us to use it wow so that that's something that i had to get comfortable with oh okay well uh interesting let's kind of pivot a bit to if somebody was to try to get into this role like what our educational background that somebody used me to do okay but you don't really need like a technical background i've worked with like old teachers you know like sales folks and things like that i think the most important stuff would be like sql um writing being comfortable with like solving problems um even presentations being comfortable talking talking yeah so those are soft skills for heart stools i would definitely say like sequel in like tableau yeah a plus is like for me i don't like coding but i've been in it enough to like be able to read and translate so if i am working with an engineer or a product manager like if they send me code or like they're like doing a demo yeah oh actually like i don't want it to work this way so that's an advantage that i have and i would encourage people even if you aren't interested in coding like me it is helpful to at least do like intros okay so like html css and like python or art like just just do like a one-on-one like intro just like basically do some kind of basic tutorial to have some idea yeah because cause then that opens you up to like knowing terminology so like a lot of companies aren't even expecting you to come in a program but like oh you're going to be working with this product manager and then they're going to be saying stuff okay i understand okay you're going to write the script and it's gonna do this okay i'm gonna do my part and like it makes it there's no language period i'll say that in terms of like programming language in the story okay so yeah this is a interesting one can you give us the average kind of like salary expectations that somebody just getting into this role can you can kind of expect like ranges et cetera yeah i can be transparent about like my journey okay yeah because you know it's like sometimes people are definitely like a bit more hey i feel like we need to do a better job at just being transparent so that people don't get low balls but uh my journey has been so like first analyst hundred dollars okay so like 50k man if 50k would have changed my life yeah yeah but they're like 40 50. and then i jumped to like mid 70s 80s okay and now like six figures okay so it's definitely like lucrative literally i think the median salary right now for just like business analysts well in austin it's like 76. okay which is goes a long way so did you say average or or median median okay okay oh and that's i think i just looked up like generic business analyst so i think starting out one could 56 depending on the company yeah 50 60 but if you're looking for a way to move into six figures it's definitely possible wow okay damn well yeah so thank you for all of the information that you've actually like given today uh so the funny things i thought about this info would be helpful you know to the people watching but it's been very nice i'm sitting here like that also i'm still trying to kind of figure out like how to actually move forward in my own career and this has been something that you've actually opened up like writing to where i might actually i'm interested actually yeah so i'm a business males but technical business analysts do exist and those are the folks that have those technical students yeah so i don't know yeah we'll see so here uh do you have any shout outs anything that you want the audience to know about you about anything that you are like working on you have new products or anything like that yeah so right now i'm actually working on this uh program called tech finisher and it's for folks finisher okay folks that are like me finessed their ransom tech so i'm still working on that i'm also in grad school so it's really like on the back burner but it's going to be up and running at some point um and then also for youtube folks in particular i also like created and shared the networking event for homecoming so we just get a bunch of folks together the alumni and current students and we network we help them with their resume we connect them with resources on campus but also like we know what it's like when you graduate yeah even if you have a job or you don't have a job a lot of us now are in a position of like help or like have companies like hey like i wanna get him to say hey i got a friend tj you know yeah he does this and like you should reach out to him or hey like the company i'm working for is hiring let me see what i can you know do and figure out so those are probably the main two things and i mean i'm a resource okay um i'll give you my linkedin or we can like find somewhere to put it but i'm always open to like answering questions and then like pivoting you in a way or like giving you resources to help figure out your career okay yeah so i will actually include all of the contact information for you for a tech financer not that that's no good uh yeah all of that information will be included below so stay tuned and that's it thank you so much we appreciate you for for coming and blessing us with all this information thank you
2021-07-28 15:01
