Become an Insurance Underwriter.

A Tax Auditor conducts statutory audits mandated under Section 44AB of the Income Tax Act, 1961 — an examination of books of accounts for businesses crossing the turnover threshold (₹1Cr for most businesses, ₹2Cr for those opting for presumptive taxation under 44AD, ₹10Cr for businesses with 95%+ digital transactions) and professionals crossing ₹50L gross receipts. The deliverable is Form 3CA/3CB (the audit report) and Form 3CD (a 44-clause statement covering everything from related-party transactions to deferred revenue expenditure). In India, only ICAI-empaneled Chartered Accountants can issue Form 3CA/3CB — the role is a statutory monopoly. Work is concentrated at Big-4 India tax practices (EY, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC), mid-tier firms (Grant Thornton Bharat, BDO, Nexdigm, SR Batliboi affiliates), and thousands of mid-to-small CA firms across tier-1 and tier-2 cities that together handle the long tail of SME tax audits. The busy season runs July–September each year, when the 30 September due date compresses months of audit work into weeks.

Risk Analysts measure and price the chance that something goes wrong on a bank's or insurer's balance sheet — borrowers defaulting (credit risk), markets moving against open positions (market risk), or operational failures like fraud, system outages, and KYC breaches (operational risk). They build statistical models — PD/LGD/EAD for credit, VaR and Expected Shortfall for market, scorecards for retail portfolios, capital models for ICAAP — and translate model output into limits, provisions, and capital requirements. In India, Risk Analysts sit inside private banks (HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak), public-sector banks (SBI, PNB), insurers (HDFC Life, ICICI Prudential, Bajaj Allianz), AMCs (Nippon, HDFC AMC), and the central bank itself (RBI's Department of Supervision and DEPR). The FRM (Financial Risk Manager) credential is the dominant signal alongside CFA — RBI Basel III norms, IRDAI risk-based capital, and SEBI mutual-fund risk frameworks make formally-credentialed risk talent scarce and well-paid.

A sell-side Research Analyst publishes equity research — initiation reports, earnings updates, and sector thematic notes — on listed companies for institutional clients (FIIs, domestic mutual funds, insurance AMCs, and hedge funds) via their brokerage's distribution network. In India the role lives at three tiers: domestic brokers with full-service research desks (Kotak Institutional Equities, Motilal Oswal Institutional Equities, JM Financial, Axis Capital, Nuvama Institutional, ICICI Securities Institutional Equities); regional desks of foreign brokerages (Jefferies India, Macquarie India, Morgan Stanley India, JP Morgan India, CLSA, Bernstein); and KPO research-support arms that feed onshore desks. Compensation is procyclical — base is a fraction of total; bonus ties directly to broker-commission revenue generated by the analyst's coverage and to their ranking in the Institutional Investor (II) Asia / Asiamoney sell-side polls, which are voted on annually by buy-side PMs. SEBI Research Analyst Regulations 2014 require all Indian sell-side analysts to register as NISM Series-XV certified Research Analysts before publishing or co-signing any report.

Business Analysts in financial services are the bridge between business stakeholders and technology / operations teams — they gather requirements, document AS-IS and TO-BE processes, write functional specifications, run UAT, and drive change-management for projects ranging from core-banking upgrades to RBI / SEBI compliance rollouts to GST automation and digital-onboarding programmes. Distinct from a Data Analyst (who works with numbers and dashboards), the Business Analyst is process-led: they sit in workshops, run JAD sessions, write BRDs and FRDs, and shepherd projects through approval gates. In India this role is concentrated at the BFSI verticals of TCS, Infosys (Finacle, Finacle Digital), Wipro, Cognizant, Capgemini, Tech Mahindra, and at the Big-4 advisory practices (Deloitte, EY, KPMG, PwC) — supporting projects at HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, SBI, Axis Bank, NSE, BSE, depositories, AMCs, and global banks' India captives. The career ladder runs Associate BA → BA → Senior BA → Lead / Principal BA → Practice Head / Engagement Manager.

Treasury Analysts manage the cash, foreign-exchange, and debt position of a corporate or bank — making sure the company has enough liquidity to operate, hedging exposure to currency and interest-rate moves, raising debt at the lowest cost, parking surpluses safely, and maintaining bank relationships across India and offshore. The work blends short-term operational rigour (daily cash position, NEFT / RTGS sweeps, intercompany funding) with structural finance decisions (₹500-Cr bond issuance, ECB drawdowns, USD-INR forwards, working-capital lines, commercial paper). In India, treasury is the highest-stakes finance function at large conglomerates — Tata Group, Reliance, Aditya Birla, Adani, Mahindra, JSW, Vedanta — and at the treasury desks of HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis, SBI, and the global capability centres of US / EU banks (Goldman Sachs Bengaluru, JPMorgan Mumbai, Bank of America Continuum). The career runs Treasury Analyst → Senior Analyst / Manager → Senior Manager / AVP → Head of Treasury / Treasurer, with very few seats at the top — most large Indian companies have only 1-3 Senior Treasury Manager roles and one Treasurer / Head of Treasury seat.

Anti-Money Laundering Analysts investigate suspicious financial activity to prevent criminal funds from entering the formal banking system. The role centres on reviewing alerts generated by transaction monitoring systems (Actimize, SAS AML, Tookitaki), conducting Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) on high-risk customers, screening transactions and counterparties against OFAC, UN, and MHA sanctions lists, and drafting Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs) filed with the Financial Intelligence Unit — India (FIU-IND) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). In India, AML analysts work inside the compliance teams of scheduled commercial banks (HDFC, ICICI, Axis, Kotak, Standard Chartered, JPMorgan, Citi), Big-4 forensic advisory practices (KPMG Forensic, EY FIDS, PwC Forensics), and the fast-growing KPO/GCC segment (Genpact, EXL, WNS) servicing global financial institutions remotely from Gurugram, Bengaluru, and Mumbai.

Credit Analysts in Indian banks (HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, SBI, Kotak Mahindra Bank) and NBFCs (Bajaj Finance, L&T Finance, Shriram Finance, Mahindra Finance) evaluate the creditworthiness of corporate and retail borrowers before loans are sanctioned. The core deliverable is a Credit Monitoring Arrangement (CMA) report — a structured analysis of the borrower's audited balance sheets, P&L statements, cash flow projections, and key credit ratios including Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR), Interest Coverage Ratio (ICR), Current Ratio, and Debt-Equity Ratio — culminating in a credit appraisal note that goes before a credit committee. On the rating-agency side, analysts at CRISIL, ICRA, CARE Ratings, and India Ratings produce long-form sector reports and issuer ratings under RBI-mandated Credit Rating Agency frameworks. This is not loan-officer sales work (origination) or equity research (upside forecasting) — it is rigorous solvency and default-risk analysis against RBI's Master Direction on Income Recognition, Asset Classification and Provisioning (IRACP) norms, working within the bank's credit policy.

Senior: ₹45.0L

Merchandise Planners in India own the numerical backbone of retail buying — pre-season OTB (Open-to-Buy) budgets, in-season allocation and replenishment, markdown optimization, and post-season sell-through forensics. Unlike the Fashion Merchandiser who curates range and negotiates vendors, the Merchandise Planner is algorithm-and-model-first: running demand forecasting tools (JDA/Blue Yonder, RELEX), building store-cluster OTB matrices, tracking GMROI, WOS, and ASP daily, and flagging inventory risk before it becomes a write-down. The role spans fashion (Reliance Retail, Aditya Birla Fashion, Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Westside/Tata), electronics (Croma), grocery, and e-commerce (Myntra, Nykaa) — any Indian retailer managing multi-SKU inventory at scale. Entry paths run through NIFT/MBA with strong quantitative aptitude, and candidates from engineering or supply chain increasingly enter through analytics roles.

Senior: ₹55.0L

Medical coders in India translate clinical documentation — physician notes, discharge summaries, operative reports, radiology findings — into ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes, CPT procedure codes, and HCPCS Level II codes used for US and UK insurance reimbursement claims. The work sits inside India's massive healthcare BPO ecosystem: companies like Omega Healthcare, AGS Health, Access Healthcare, and Vee Technologies employ over 1.5 lakh coders who process records for US hospitals, physician groups, and ambulatory surgery centres from delivery centres in Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, and Bengaluru. Entry-level coders earn a CPC credential from AAPC within 6–18 months of starting; mid-career coders add CCS (AHIMA) or specialty credentials (CIC for inpatient, CRC for risk adjustment) to move into quality audit, denial management, and team-lead roles. Remote work is standard — a broadband connection and a VPN access to the client's EHR are all the infrastructure needed.

Senior: ₹11.4L

Indian Railway Engineers keep the world's fourth-largest rail network moving — 1.4 crore passengers and 3.3 million tonnes of freight daily across 68,000 route-km. The role splits into two entry ladders: Group C (Junior Engineer / Section Engineer via RRB JE/SSC) handling track patrolling, loco maintenance, signal cabin ops, and station works; and the elite Group A officer cadre (IRSEE, IRSME, IRSE, IRSSE via UPSC ESE) commanding Divisions as Assistant/Divisional/Senior Divisional Engineers. Four disciplines — Civil (track, bridges, tunnels, stations), Mechanical (locos, coaches, wagons at Loco/Carriage & Wagon sheds), Electrical (OHE, substations, traction), and Signal & Telecom (interlocking, ATP systems, optical fibre) — each have a parallel promotion ladder ending at General Manager and Railway Board Member. The job is physically demanding, acutely safety-critical, and comes with permanent housing in Railway colonies from day one.

Senior: ₹24.0L

The Financial Controller is the operational finance lead in any organisation — the person who owns the integrity of the books, closes the month, defends the accounts in audit, and translates ledger data into MIS that the CFO and business heads use to make decisions. At Indian listed companies (HUL, ITC, Tata Steel, Infosys BU controllers), mid-cap industrials, and GCC finance centres (JPMorgan, Goldman, Wells Fargo, Zoho, Freshworks, Razorpay finance ops), the Controller is CFO #2: accountable for Ind AS / IFRS-compliant financial statements, ICOFR / SOX control evidence, statutory and internal audit defence, AP/AR and treasury ops oversight, ERP master-data governance, and monthly MIS packs. Unlike the CFO who focuses on strategy and capital allocation, the Controller's mandate is operational rigor — a T+5-to-T+10 close cycle, zero audit qualifications, and internal controls that hold up under SEBI LODR or SOX scrutiny.

Senior: N/A