Career as a Software Tester

Question

Respected all, I am a fresher who is interested in a job as a software tester. I had few general queries regarding the prospects of this kind of a job in a software company.

• What are the kind of challenges that a tester faces in real life situations that make his/her job more interesting and self-motivating?
• What are the growth opportunities for an individual in a software company who wants to pursue a career as a software tester?
• Are software developers and software testers treated alike in terms of growth opportunities or otherwise? If not so why? How does one(software tester or any one else) deal with such situation such that its a win win situation for both the company and the software tester?

I am really looking forward to the answers that you can give from your personal experiences and insights.

Thank you..:)

Answer 1

Hi,

Personally I do love the trouble shooting and interaction with all involved in a project while testing. I have done testing as a contractor/consultant for the last 13 years and I still enjoying going to work most days :)

As a (good) tester you will usually become an expert on the whole system you are testing not just a specific part of it. I think a good treat to have as tester to always want to learn more and improve your own work and skills. You will have to have very broad skillset. I do work with MS, Linux, Unix, AS400, MSSQL, ORACLE, DB2 etc.. this list is endless and whenever needed I have to quickly learn something new.

Early in your career as a tester you will be making less than a developer(my experience anyway) with same amount of years of experience. But if you are good I believe its faster to do career as a tester and pay is equal to developers.

The negative things with testing from my point of view;
* Testing is a lot of different processes to follow and documentation writing.
* Sometimes ending up in teams were developers don't treat test department with enough respect.
* Sometimes ending up with testers who are no good and because they could not do the job as an developer..

Answer 2

Hi mgj,

You might want to consider the following while you begin you career as a s/w tester:

1. Software testers are also programmers -- not sure if this has not occurred to you. You need to be good at coding to break things, particularly if you are doing white box testing.Distinction between developers and testers don't make much sense in this context.
2. Have you decided on which avenues of s/w you want to make a career out of? Domain knowledge is very significant -- C, C++, Perl, Tcl, Python are good but they are just the means to reach an end. Try reading LRM or RFC, perhaps implementations of these is what you'd be testing at some point in time in future. If you have the domain expertise growth opportunities would be abound.
3. Salary levels are best observed from sites like payscale, do some research. But before that decide on the domain -- network testers and PCB board testers may not have the same pay although both are very challenging. Do not accept a job just 'cause it pays well - this is a quick way of committing a suicide and you may not realize this before late.

Arpan

Answer 3

My guess is that some may enjoy the challenge of trying to break something and enjoy the destructive aspects to testing that can be interesting. Picture something like, "See, if I do this, the whole thing goes 'ka-bluie!'" where the end result is that something that takes down the mission critical system is caught. Others may enjoy the pride that they have in ensuring that poor software doesn't pass through Quality Assurance that may be a source of motivation.

For growth opportunities, I could see there being the management route of becoming a team leader, test group manager and then director for one line. Another line could be to get into other departments like becoming a developer, project manager, or business analyst for a different route.

Developers and testers can share some opportunities though I would note that the tester may not be seen as being as technical as the developer. Thus, architects and other deep technical positions may be more likely to go to developers rather than testers, would be my opinion on it. I don't have facts to support it but there can be some snobbiness between testers and developers that shouldn't be lost here.

Managing expectations and understanding how far each side should go in communicating problems is likely a key point on your last question. There can be the concern that minor bugs are acceptable in the first version of software which may anger the tester so this is something to understand in some ways. Similarly, a major showstopper bug should be handled before release would be the flip side as something to note and be prepared to defend one's position as well as understand that someone else may overrule your call.

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In response to yoosiba's comments:

Some people may initially start out as a tester and progress into being a developer. Would you not concede that those wanting to start in IT may start at testing or help desk roles? I state that some testers may move into other roles and state at least a couple of other possibilities, such as project management and business analysis that I would hope are also not exactly straightforward progressions either.

Some testers can enjoy stirring the pot, though these can be rare individuals at times. There are some people that enjoy breaking things or to put it another way stress testing things to see what happens if we try this or that.

Answer 4

While I believe that every team should have software testers as part of the development process, they are usually the 1st to go when times are tough.

The developer is then expected to play a bigger part of the testing.

According to this survey, most bugs are due to poor testing procedures http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/45005

Hopefully, more management will realize that their investment in the project may not realize full potential with proper testing