Ms. Pai is a Senior Business Analyst for derivatives who is responsible for analyzing vendor data feeds, testing solutions, maintaining documents, sourcing and updating derivatives data, monitoring client queries, and working on projects for new customers and markets. A typical week involves long hours, around 60-70 hours, with weekends being busy as well. She enjoys the challenging and constantly changing nature of her work but dislikes the rigid deadlines and low flexibility. Her position fits within the organization just below the team manager. To prepare for this career, relevant skills include math, statistics, English, SQL, and knowledge of programming languages like Python and Java.

1. Ms Pai
Senior Business Analyst – Derivatives
Shravan Shetty
( Career Coach)
The Career Interview 15

2. Lets Explore Careers
Lets Explore the career pathway of a Senior Business
analyst – Derivatives

3. What is your current designation?
Senior Business Analyst -
Derivatives

4. What are your main responsibilities ?
 Analysis of vendor feeds like Reuters DSE feed, Bloomberg feed and exchange feeds like CME,
Eurex, Euronext and other Exchanges derivatives data to Smart Stream Data model (Listed
Derivatives).
 Testing of solutions / new modules released by the development team before implementation
of the same.
 Maintaining of the entire documents pertaining to the exchange.
 Sourcing the Derivatives static data through Exchange website and adding it to database using
SQL queries, also updating the vendor data wherever required to ensure the cross reference of
vendor data with exchange data.
 Analyzing the data issues with respect to vendors like Reuters and Bloomberg and fixing the
same in order to cross reference the records Keeping track of various data notifications from
vendors and updating them in database in order to maintain the agreed coverage of vendor
Data.
 Actively monitoring the client queries and fixing them within the agreed timelines. Responsible
to create a detailed test plans based on analysis of requirements and design documents and
preparing test cases.
 Working for the Global Reference Data Services to provide reference data services to our
clients. Involved in Projects relating to Coverage of New Customers and Markets.

5. What is a typical day (or week) like for you?
Monday to Friday usually 60 to 70 hour week

6. What do you like most about your work?
 Challenging, not at all routine, usually every 120 days
you work on a new set of data constant learning

7. What do you like least about your work?
Rigid deadlines and low flexibility. if you take a break
and get back, the project you were working on would
have changed and you get very little time to catch up

8. What kinds of problems do you deal with?
Technical failures, sudden change of technology or file
format by vendor. client fines are severe even for delay
of minutes. so any change not confirmed by vendor in
advance can cause huge problems. This is usually with
vendors who nominate small fee

9. What kinds of decisions do you make?
How a new product should be mapped and what
should the file from vendors look like what is the
mapping guidelines

10. How does your position fit within the
organization/career field/industry?
Just below team manager who in turn is headed by the
National head.

11. How does your job affect your general lifestyle?
Weekends are usually very hectic anywhere between 11
-12 hours of work and couple of hours for travelling

12. What current issues and trends in the field should I
know about/be aware of?
Currently it is commodity Derivatives which is popular

13. What are some common career paths in this field?
Analyst, Senior Analyst, Mapping Analyst, Team
Manager, BU head

14. What kinds of accomplishments tend to be valued
and rewarded in this field?
Low error rate, client appreciation , project winning PO

15. What related fields should one consider looking
into?
Business Analyst - Equity, Business Analyst -
Commodities, Business Analyst - Fixed income ,
Business Analyst - NAV

16. How did you become interested in this field?
At the age of 12, when i used to help grandpa monitor
his stock portfolio using newspaper

17. How did you begin your career?
I started with Reuters

18. How do most people get into this field? What are
common entry-level jobs?
Thompson Reuters , Bloomberg do take interns,
Entry level is Analyst

19. How relevant to your work is your undergraduate
major?
4

20. What steps would you recommend I take to prepare
to enter this field?
Maths, statistics, English, SQL ,MS office are core skills,
Any knowledge of python and Java will be very helpful

21. What kind of education, training, or background
does your job require?
MBA finance/CA/Software engineering with experience
in banking software coding

22. What skills, abilities, and personal attributes are
essential to success in your job/this field?
Patience, ability to think on your feet, methodical and be
effectively able to translate and interpret business needs
into technical requirements, along with analyzing impact
of changes as new solutions are introduced

23. What is the profile of the person most recently hired at my
level?
MBA finance with 7 year exp with Bloomberg

24. What are the most effective strategies for seeking a
position in this field?
SQL, Java and any analyst exp in banking/reference
data/ product development

25. Can you recommend trade journals, magazines or
professional associations which would be helpful for
my professional development?
Economic times

26. If you could do it all over again, would you choose
the same path for yourself? If not, what would you
change?
YES

27. I’ve read that the entry-level salary range for this
field is usually in the range of ______?
RS 420000 per year

28. What advice would you give someone who is
considering this type of job (or field)?
Learn java or python along with SQL

29. Thank You

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31. Thank You