The Evolution of a Software Tester
You have likely heard of quotes such as “you are what you learn,” or “you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been,” or “what got you here won’t get you there.” The common thread that runs through these sayings is the notion of continuous learning, and that’s the goal of this post. We’ll jump to the point and share a few thoughts from various testers:
“I used to hate developers, but now I respect and work more collaboratively with them.”
“I used to shy away from code, but now I’ve dabbled with it enough to know how to debug a good amount of defects I find.”
“I used to report a bug as soon as I found it, but now I take the time to dig deeper for the purpose of unearthing potentially useful information for developers.”
“I used to think testers alone were responsible for defining and ensuring quality, but now I understand that quality is the responsibility of the entire team.”
“I used to think that software certifications were useless, but now I believe that there are benefits if used properly.”
Many of these quotes were shared on the uTest Forums, but this is by no means an exhaustive list by any measure. If you are a seasoned tester with nuggets of wisdom accumulated through the years, we want to hear what you have to say – so please submit your comments below.
I used to consider coders faceless machines. I now realize they are real people, with feelings, opinions and humor like the rest of us. They have good days and bad, deadlines and responsabilities. We need to be more respectfull of each other, we are not so different.
Funny – I’m coming from the opposite direction; I’m a coder moving into a QA role – something I NEVER thought I would do.
I always saw testers as a “poor mans” programmer; someone who criticised the code without actually wanting to do the “work” (and I know some testers get a little “too gleeful” when they find a bug – the last thing a programmer needs to see when they have tight deadlines!)
Am coming around to see that testers have a tougher role than I first thought. Espeically the tightrope position they are in – wanting to make the best product for our clients but also making sure they are communicating with the programmers to make sure we’re all working towards the same purpose.