Product Controller vs. Business Analyst?

business analyst on the IT side isn't going to be that fun. When my group transitioned from being under the quant division to IT, the firm hired in a bunch of business analysts. The analytics guys (now "developers") were used to meeting other groups and the business side on their own, but the BA's came along and wanted to take over that job. Ultimately, the developers were running circles around the BAs, and the BAs took on more of a clerical role in the development process.

There are front-office BAs- at least in trading, but there's only a few. They're incredibly smart and probably not paid as much as they'd be if they had chosen a different profession. It's difficult to move from a qualitative role to a technical role, so few of them ever get beyond being a front-office BA inside the bank. (I would imagine that some of them eventually move on to become consultants at McKinsey, ZS Associates, Deloitte, etc.)

Product Control might be more interesting. It'll give you a fair amount of exposure to the accounting side of the business as well as the detail of how a lot of different trades work. It's not glamorous, but I think it will offer more opportunities to move to the front office than being a BA. In the back and middle office, the general rule of thumb is that all things being equal in a candidate (particularly people skills), it's easier to move to the front office if you have a technical role that requires specialized knowledge. (IE: programming, accounting, how trades settle/work, accounting, quantitative skills, etc.)