Business Analyst: Facts, Skills, and Next Paths

A Business Analyst works with stakeholders to understand their needs, documents requirements, and analyzes processes to recommend improvements. They use tools like SQL to pull data, create models or visualizations, and facilitate meetings to align business goals with technical solutions.

Core responsibilities include gathering requirements, writing user stories, modeling processes, and managing stakeholder expectations. Business Analysts often sit between business units and IT teams, acting as a translator. For example, at Kaizen Approach, BAs lead requirements workshops for federal programs, while at Capital One they apply strategic analysis to company challenges. At AWS, BAs resolve sales compensation escalations by analyzing data and developing scalable solutions.

The median salary is approximately $104,565, and the skills most frequently requested in current job postings include Documentation (50%), Agile/Scrum (40%), and Requirements Gathering (40%).