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I want to know the difference between the roles Test Analyst and Technical Test Analyst, since the ISTQB has different paths for Test Analyst and Technical Test Analyst.
Is there a difference in experience/skills/typical earnings for a Test Analyst versus a Technical Test Analyst?
If there is a difference across the industry, what is it?
Technical Test Analyst most closely aligns with "Test Engineer" whereas the Test Analyst is just a tester.
Engineer or Technical implies the knowledge and capability to do more than just stay on the surface but to be able to dig around into the engineering makeup of an application or product. If you were doing some oil rig testing, you would want an engineer to look into it to verify it's quality and not just some person to check off a list.
When I look for a "tester" it's someone who can articulately and competently test an application in order to ensure that the functionality is working correctly. When I look for a "test engineer or Technical tester" it's someone who can understand the way an application is supposed to work and dig in and find out how it's not working correctly with an understanding of the technical makeup of the application. Often Test Engineers also can get into automation as they have more understanding of coding and application setup.
I think the differences are best explained by comparing their skill sets:
From my personal experience:
The borderline between them is not strictly black-white, most of the time, it is merely a title. It does not mean a test analyst can not do test automation or a technical test analyst can not execute business UAT.
Based solely on the description I can make the assumption that the technical test analyst is geared towards the devops shift in the industry. The technical test analyst would know more about the processes involving automation.
Most above answers says technical test analysts primary for test automation. But ISTQB has separate path for Test Automation Engineers
Hence I think technical test analyst have responsibility of much more broader technical quality in SUT than automation(such as path testing,static analysis and maintainability & portability testing).
Where advance test analyst have much more broader responsibility of overall quality of SUT than just technical(such as process of testing, usability and defect management ).
but of course there are many common factors in all these three areas.
