I’m Chris Conway, Founder, Lead Coach, and CEO at the IT Bootcamp. I also work on-site with clients as an Agile Coach & Consultant, because in IT, where things change fast, those who can do, can teach.
In this 6-part series, I’m exposing a problem that has kept critical IT roles in the shadows for too long—the lack of formal training and structured career paths for Business Analysts (BA), Quality Assurance (QA) Analysts, and Scrum Masters (SM).
Despite being the backbone of IT projects, these roles are often overlooked—buried under broader job categories or mistaken for secondary functions. They are essential to IT success, yet they remain hidden, undervalued, and missing from industry conversations.
Why does this happen? In this series, we’ll pull back the curtain on the Hidden Roles of IT, uncovering why education systems ignore them, how industry tracking erases them, and what can be done to finally bring them into the spotlight. The demand for these skills is rising—especially in an AI-driven world—but without structured pathways, countless professionals are left struggling to break in.
It’s time to change that. Let’s reveal the truth about these hidden roles—and maybe ruffle a few feathers along the way.
This part explores the lack of formal training and career pathways for Business Analysts, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Scrum Masters. It dives into the gaps in educational programs and the consequences of a fragmented approach to training these critical roles in the IT industry.
Lack of Educational Programs:
Unlike software engineering or data science, there are very few high school or college programs targeting BA, QA, or SM careers. Aspiring developers can major in computer science, but an aspiring business analyst or scrum master finds no majors aligned to these roles. These "certified business analyst training gaps" as a client of mine once said cause real issues.
Similarly, QA testers and Scrum Masters rarely have dedicated university majors; most learn through experience (which is very difficult) or short-term certifications which can only teach a small portion of what they really need. Coding bootcamps have boomed to train software developers, but bootcamps for BA or QA skills are rare (this is why we at The IT Bootcamp started our program focusing on BA/QA/SM exclusively). Some private training companies offer BA, or QA, or SM courses, but these are usually a small portion of the skills needed, rarely do they ever touch upon all 3 roles, and are not yet mainstream in academia or vocational education.
This lack of a structured entry path creates a broken system where companies struggle to find qualified professionals, and job seekers are left guessing how to gain the right skills. I've always seen that the industry needs a better solution—one that provides structured, hands-on training and career support. That is exactly why I started The IT Bootcamp in the first place.
Should BA, QA, and SM be tracked as separate roles, or should they be grouped with other roles for industry reporting?
Separate roles.
Group roles.
It depends.
Not sure.
Corporate Training Gaps lacking Business Analyst, Quality Assurance Analyst, and Scrum Master Training:
Companies prioritize technical training but often overlook the specialized skills BAs, QAs, and SMs need to succeed—such as facilitation, requirements modeling, and agile coaching. This leaves professionals struggling to develop the expertise necessary for their roles.
Many companies lack entry-level programs for these roles, expecting new hires to ramp up by observing others or through ad-hoc mentoring. As a consequence, professionals must often self-educate through books, online courses, or professional certifications.
Unlike software engineers, who follow structured degree and certification paths, BAs, QAs, and SMs are left to piece together their education from scattered sources. This creates what we call the ‘Certification Trap’ - where professionals chase multiple short-term courses without a clear learning journey or real-world application (more on that later). The absence of comprehensive soft-skill training means BAs and SMs are unable to learn crucial skills needed for their role – skills like facilitation, requirements modeling, testing methodologies, agile coaching etc. Our program at the ITBC is addressing that, our BA/QA/SM career change program focuses on those exact skills needed to succeed as a BA/QA/SM.
It’s common to hear that “the Scrum Master role is not an entry level position… it requires pre-existing knowledge and skills”, yet figuring out how to gain those skills is either unclear or left to the individual. Overall, across all education levels, a structured curriculum for these jobs is missing, creating a large and growing talent gap.
Mid-Career Transitions Instead of Early Pathways:
Without a clear educational path, most BAs, QAs, and SMs don’t start their careers in these roles, they stumble into them from unrelated fields like marketing, HR, finance, or administration. Often, they take on extra IT project responsibilities because no one else is filling the gap. Instead of structured training, they rely on trial and error to develop the necessary skills.
For example, it’s “very common for people to start off as quality assurance analysts, marketing analysts, admins, developers, project managers, project support… and through accident or career progression fall into becoming a business analyst” (The Student Room).
Quality analysts might start as a business user who helps the IT team test for issues when they make changes to their software, a support specialist, or even a developer who discovered a knack for testing. Scrum Masters often follow a similar path, somehow learning agile principles and finding an interest in the role. In short, new BAs, QAs, and SMs are usually made, not born. We believe this is why our Alumni from any career background succeed in IT as BA/QA/SM, because everyone in these roles came from somewhere else.
Within the roles of BA/QA/SM, they are very similar, that one can even move back and forth between them - a career-change route that is so common that one guide calls business analysis “a natural progression and a great career move for a QA professional”, noting it’s one of the fastest-growing professions (AdaptiveUS). Although switching between these roles is easy, there’s an alarming lack of dedicated education for these roles. While software engineers have degrees, aspiring BAs, QAs, and Scrum Masters are left to ‘figure it out’—often with no formal guidance until they’re already on the job.
We challenge the claim that these are not entry-level roles. Every BA, QA, and SM has to start somewhere—but without structured training, companies place the burden on individuals to ‘figure it out’ alone. Experience must be built, and the best way to do that is through guided learning and hands-on experience. Our Alumni prove that success in these careers isn’t about prior experience—it’s about the right training and real-world practice.
We believe that our end-to-end IT Bootcamp for BA, QA, and SM (providing training, hands-on experience, and guidance not just for a year, but throughout your entire career) is the difference. We train, allow you to get that experience, and surround you with a community of BA/QA/SM. The gap in the industry is wide, but we’re filling it. If you’re ready to break into BA, QA, or SM with real training and experience, click the ‘Learn More’ button at the top of the page or schedule a chat with an Alumni who made the same transition. Your IT career starts here.
Now that we’ve uncovered the critical gaps in formal training and career pathways for BAs, QAs, and SMs, the next question is: Why are these roles so often overlooked in workforce tracking? Join us next week to discover Part 2: Overlooked and Undervalued in Industry Tracking, where we’ll reveal how industry data and surveys fail to capture the true value of these professionals.
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