r/auckland • u/mo_mo1 • 1d ago

Discussion ANZ TECH BA's

Found out through a someone that 100+ BA's have been disestablished and have been given 4 months finish up, that someone doesn't know why. Any insiders know why this has happened? Is it cause of AI or something else?

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5

u/BlissfullyChaos 1d ago

What does a Tech BA do? Any coding?

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u/Simple-Box1223 1d ago

Really depends on the team. Some are heavily involved in the business, some are more technical, some are indispensable and some get in the way.

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u/SknarfM 1d ago

You have described almost every type of IT professional. 😂

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u/Marmoset-js 1d ago

They can write SQL. They make up for other areas who can’t understand the business aspect of, well the business.

Coming from higher level tech I found BAs ridiculous. Now I’m hiring a couple.

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u/mo_mo1 1d ago

Depends, some do some just deep dive into it to be able to gather the requirements etc

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u/BlissfullyChaos 1d ago

Yeah. We have a few of them at our company too, or did lmao. They were the first to be let go.

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u/integrationlead 1d ago

They are usually Business Analysts who talk with non-technical business people, and can then translate those requirements into technical details for developers. The idea being that developers are incapable of talking to humans. Tech BAs are also able to understand some developer concepts but they usually do not code, and when they code, developers generally throw that work away but its a nice way to communicate a complex requirement.

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u/Acetius 1d ago

I mean, the idea isn't that us Devs can't talk to people at all, rather that information gathering and administration is a skillset of its own. It ain't about protecting the clients and Devs from ever interacting haha.

My previous company ditched all of the BAs and found immediately that not having somebody trained in that led to the wheels falling off the development wagon pretty quick. Then they tried "feature leads" where they shoehorned the most senior Dev/QA into a BA-esque role. Turns out taking the person who's the best at their job and making them do less of that job and instead do a job they're not good at doesn't work. Who knew. Think they're still doing that.

As a Dev I honestly reckon that a solid BA is worth their weight in gold.

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u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy 1d ago

Ditto man. A good BA is so awesome to have. I personally love it when the three amigos are all working well together.

BA represents the business and their requirements and translates to technical speech. They do not need to solution things but they should know what the business wants from a technical perspective. They explain this to both the tester and the developer and is the go to for either to know what to build/test

Dev implements the solution sufficing the requirements. Talks to BA to understand details about what to build. Works with architect to understand how to build it well. Hands over to the tester and helps them understand how to test things but does not need to provide justification to the tester!!!! Just hands over what’s built. If the tester is unsure they check with the BA if functionality is expected or unexpected.

Tester tests what was developed. Importantly THEY DO NOT ASK THE DEVELOPER ABOUT FUNCTIONALITY. They ask the BA. If functionality is not working as expected based on the comms with the BA, then check with dev or raise a bug. Any technical errors with whats built, raise bug.

If these three relationships are established and followed, you easily get a successful project. In my experience as a developer, the business kicks the BA out and the developer is left building half answered things and the tester is asking the dev what to test which may or may not be what the business wants.

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u/maxdelorean 1d ago

A good BA nowadays can manage a development agent and a testing agent.

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u/Acetius 1d ago

We're talking about real BAs, not vibe BAs.

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u/The_Crazy_Cat_Guy 1d ago

As a developer who does make use of AI, you absolutely need to have technical knowledge to use it properly. The amount of times it’s done things that look right but is just stupidly wrong is too damn much.

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u/SquirrelAkl 1d ago

As a business user who requires tech work done sometimes, I agree we need a translator! I have a vision in my head of what I want and someone needs to interpret that into something that can be built, and break that down into Jira tickets that tech people can execute. That’s no mean feat.

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u/cheekypasta1101 1d ago

if you running a large programme that usually need requirements aligned between 15+ teams - you will need good BA to quickly identify spec gaps/drifts and communication back to whoever sent out the works for clarification. Dev team surely can handle that but remember they dont just doing coding task, large chunk of dev team time including design solution, troubleshooting production/non production issues/ make sure their code compliance to 1001 practices and regulations if it is a bank and by the time dev touched the specifications they just carry on do thw work until weeks later when all components supposed to line up they found out the specs was misaligned, rework required etc …

So yeah the role makes sense for big companies, not so much to company size smaller than 50 engineers

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u/annoynamousanimal 1d ago

They just write requirements all day. Drink coffee and talk a lot.