Business Analysts wear many hats. My latest? Developer.
So I made a few comments and posts on this sub over the last few months about how I think Claude Code is going to completely transform our position - not only will it change how we tackle all of our traditional responsibilities...but it substantially closed the gap between us and developers.
The barrier to entry for coding is nil. And it has been for at least six months now. This is incomprehensibly empowering for Business Analysts.
At my company, I came down to IT as a business analyst after more than a decade on the business side. I was both a domain expert for our industry and a super user for our in-house app. My only gap was the technical side. Basically, I'm the guy on your floor that everyone asks for help when they're too lazy to ask HelpDesk. My secret? Google. So I'm not a Luddite, but I understand the incredible difference in expertise of the true technical guys. I'm in awe of these dudes, because I never had the commitment to sit down and learn to code - and I genuinely admire it.
With all that said...Claude Code lets us join the game with them. And we have talents, perspectives and abilities that they don't have. IMO, the Business Analyst profession is going to shift to take maximum advantage of that. And the smart Business Analysts will take advantage of that shift early and help re-define our role.
We already wear many hats. Now we're wearing one more gigantic one. But it's a superpowered one. Developer.
Just this week, we pushed out a prod release for our in-house app. It's the largest update we've pushed out in months. One of our screens that's utilized by a handful of VIPs was significantly optimized for performance - data loads significantly faster, elements are more responsive, elements update instead of prompting a screen reload, etc. Also redesigned the UI - inspired by the old, but given a meaningful facelift and reorganization. Fixed a handful of important bugs (including catching some pre-Claude sloppy re-used code that someone used with unintended effects). Gave a modest UI design to another screen and improved some of its functionality, including some non-optimal pre-existing code.
It deployed on Tuesday. Went flawlessly. All the new features worked. No bug reports. Checkers cleared. User feedback is fantastic - they love the re-designs.
I 'coded' the majority of the tickets in the release, including the projects I specifically mentioned (easily the two biggest features in this release). Me. A Business Analyst.
Claude Code is incredible. It's literally made me a developer. I understand the incredible knowledge gap between me and true developers. They operate on another plane from where I'm at right now. But I can learn. And I respect the craft enough to do my due diligence in testing, researching, asking questions, etc. My VP and SVP are impressed. They've been emphasizing Claude Code for our developers obviously (like any smart company is doing at this point), but I'm the only non-technical person that has embraced it to this level. I've been doing mock-ups via Claude Code for months. In fully functional, local copies of the app. They gave me my own developer database a couple months ago so that I wouldn't have to contaminate one of our QA databases anymore (don't worry, me and the QA guy work closely together and would coordinate to work in separate DBs - he's my boy and I've been training him up on Claude Code too. He's planning to retire in a few years and he's so enthusiastic about Claude Code - it's like the fanciest tool of his career came out right as he's planning to retire lol). For months, I kept hearing jokes after someone checked out one of my fully functional, fully coded to spec 'mock-ups' - "Holy crap, you're basically a developer now."
And it paid off. They let me start working tickets. And I freaking ran with it. Tested the ever living hell out of everything. Stayed up past midnight multiple nights. Made a couple rookie mistakes along the way, but all the developers assured me that they've made the same mistakes. And they were just simple bug fixes basically. Had to learn the ropes for pulling down code, creating branches, doing commits and pull requests, code review, etc. But overall, it was freaking amazing. I was legitimately having fun. It was like a dream come true - a little digital developer at my fingertips, doing whatever I ask, in minutes. I can iterate and tinker endlessly. I can quickly explore all kinds of design or implementation ideas. I'm not limited by my developer's knowledge gaps or weaknesses. I can code in a day what would have taken a developer weeks. And I can do it with way more quality of life features. And maybe better performance. And potentially a better UI.
Our VP pinged my boss singing my praises. Spoke to him later - says he basically trusts me like a developer now. Our CIO came over and joked about Claude being our best friend now.
This is where the Business Analyst role is going. This is an incredible career opportunity for any Business Analysts looking to advance their career. You can literally be part of re-defining this position. You can position yourself as something that's never existed in the professional world...and covers a WHOLE lot of bases. All in one person.
The stereotypical Business Analyst:Developer relationship was basically People Person:Technical Person. But now the coding side of technical has been commodified - and that's a big damn part of it. And once you build that bridge, it's easy to start connecting with the rest of it. Am I comparable to a 10-year Software Engineer? Fuck no. Comparing our expertise is absolutely insulting to that SWE. But am I comparable to the version of him from 10 years ago? Now that's a different question. He has ten years of experience on me. I can get experience. And I can learn new stuff, now that I'm actually developing.
Holy shit, I'm actually developing. Blows my mind! I love being a Business Analyst and I never wanna give up that user interaction - but it's like a whole new dimension got unlocked, and I'm insanely excited to add it to my repertoire. It's nothing short of transformative to my career. It's like a massive door just opened for me.
This is easily the most exciting experience of my career so far. Moving to IT a few years ago was the previous high watermark.
For the first time in my career, I don't know where the ceiling is - and I'm incredibly excited.