IT jobs - general question.

Forums › Off topic › IT jobs - general question.

rayonline

1736 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 51

#70928 2-Nov-2010 22:31

Hi, I been working in finance etc .. and thought about a change into IT.

I want to ask you guys in terms of a IT job how analytical are they? I understand there are various and very indepth analysis that has to be done for some IT jobs but is it true they are only to meet a viable solution? IT is more about systems and processes.

In otherwords, is IT analysis is not very "technical". Ie., it's not crunching numbers, it's not like lab research or a computer science lecturer/researcher writing a research paper. I'm quite into the very technical stuff.

Next question is that for some jobs outside of IT, you may be an assistant or you may be called over to help a team out and even as a junior position you can get involved with the technical stuff. How does IT work in this regard?

Thanks in advance.

Ragnor

8279 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 585

Trusted

#399431 3-Nov-2010 02:34

There are many many different roles in "IT".. some are specialist some are more generalist..

You probably want to take a look at a few of the main job sites (seek, trademe jobs, itjobs etc) and check out the sub categories under IT for an idea of the range.

Balchy

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#399451 3-Nov-2010 07:55

Are you talking about being a Business Analyst?

I am one of those, and one of my colleagues made the transition over from his previous career as an accountant.

Neither of us have formal IT training but we are pretty tech savvy. It only starts to get technical when you start to branch off into data analysis.

I would highly recommend BA as a job, varied interesting work, with a nice paycheck :)

For billions of years since the outset of time, every single one of your ancestors survived, every single person on your Mum and Dads side, successfully looked after and passed onto you life. What are the chances of that like?

Jaxson

8172 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1332

Trusted

#399465 3-Nov-2010 08:35

Balchy: I would highly recommend BA as a job

Would you mind expanding a bit on what this area actually involves please?

wreck90

780 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#399467 3-Nov-2010 08:39

Yep, business analysts are those who cannot do the real work.

However, in saying that, gathering the correct requirements is crucial so you can't be a plank of wood either.

Balchy

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#399472 3-Nov-2010 08:44

Jaxson:
Balchy: I would highly recommend BA as a job

Would you mind expanding a bit on what this area actually involves please?

I guess the easiest way to explain it is that BA's are the link between the end users and the techies.

The main function of BA's is to gather and compile business requirements.

Take my current projects for example. We are replacing our organisations entire suite of systems.

Currently I am meeting with the business users, trying to gain an understanding of what it is exactly that they do. I will then record this generally using process mapping techniques.

This will generally lead to us gathering requirements on what users need the systems to do in order to make their business actaully work.

We then pass this on to system analysts and the enteprise architecture teams who will generally manage the design and build process of the software.

After the initial build the BA's will then engage with the business to write test scripts and assist with the testing to ensure that what was built does work and that sort of thing.

Does that make sense?

Balchy

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#399473 3-Nov-2010 08:45

wreck90: Yep, business analysts are those who cannot do the real work.

However, in saying that, gathering the correct requirements is crucial so you can't be a plank of wood either.

Well put, we just had a project set back by six months because the BA that was involved didnt go into the correct detail. That item know requires significant development before the system can go live

Dell

Shop now for Dell laptops and other devices (affiliate link).

Jaxson

8172 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 1332

Trusted

#399477 3-Nov-2010 08:51

Balchy: Does that make sense?

Sure does, thanks!
Food for thought as they say.

rayonline

1736 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 51

#399491 3-Nov-2010 09:15

Balchy: Are you talking about being a Business Analyst?

I am one of those, and one of my colleagues made the transition over from his previous career as an accountant.

Neither of us have formal IT training but we are pretty tech savvy. It only starts to get technical when you start to branch off into data analysis.

I would highly recommend BA as a job, varied interesting work, with a nice paycheck :)

No I am not looking at a BA role. Looking at what is a technical role. It seems like it at least Data Analysis might me of something that is interest to me. Does this entail programming and SQL stuff?

Balchy

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#399494 3-Nov-2010 09:22

No I am not looking at a BA role. Looking at what is a technical role. It seems like it at least Data Analysis might me of something that is interest to me. Does this entail programming and SQL stuff?

Not really, thats heading more into the DBA or Sys Admin kind of area to the best of my knowledge.

ultima1

9 posts

Wannabe Geek
+1 received by user: 2

#399495 3-Nov-2010 09:23

Look into jobs like Business intelligence analyst (not the ETL development side), it helps a lot having a statistics background with an interest in the technical side.

ScottStevensNZ

245 posts

Master Geek

#399510 3-Nov-2010 10:10

Think it depends on what is meant by analysis. As someone said, you have business analysis which tends not to be particulary technical (though I do prefer to deal with a BA who has some form of technical background). I am a Performance Analyst so my role tends to be on the more techy side of things from performing stats analysis on performance results, to designing tests, and identifying weaknesses in technology stacks and architectures.

Load & Performance Tester/PHP/JSP/C/PERL/MYSQL/LoadRunner8->11/HTML/CSS/XML/XSLT/2B|!2B/Cervelo Soloist/EMC Equip4/ Samsung Galaxy S /Darkys 10.2 Extreme

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
use strict;
my $sheepCount;

Yes, they can.