Need Career Advice

[Nevin]

Hi, I have been a developer for 2 years. (Web development). Currently in India, am 23,years old. I am planning to change my role in my current company to a business analyst.

I sought some advice from my cousin who is a lead at his firm. He advised me to stick on to my coding job, and move onto an architect role. But I firmly believe that I will do better at a job which involves more socializing and interacting with clients rather than just sitting in front of the pc all day. 

My questions are :

* What's the scope of a business analyst in the next 5-10 years. 

* Wîll business analyst be automated? (Via speech recognition software)

* Is there any other roles that involves the same job profile as a business analyst?

* What's the business analyst chances of getting jobs abroad?

Thanks

[ace589]

Hello Nevin.  There is much grey area in the definition of business analyst.

 The primary duty of the BA is to collect requirements and manage conflicting requirements.  

Business Systems Analysts sometimes just called Business Analysts are more technical and translate the requirements into tasks for the Database administrators, developers, etc. They are much like an architect.  

A business process analyst is also sometimes just called business analyst.  They work closer with the workflows of the business and help define procedures for quality, operations, compliance, etc.

Some companies these are separate roles but at most they all fall under the same title.

Smaller companies are more lean in that programmers are also BA.   Agile development is important to remember and BA should be careful not to overscope a project too soon.