[siddhartham]

Hi All

I had chosen software testing as a career by default without knowing much about it
initially thought the role would be similar to that in the development field ie. testing the code which is written by the developers and identifying defects. But soon realized that its purely a clerical job where in your tehnical skills are not at all required neither there is any value addition in terms of skills gained over a period of time. Quality is the latest buzzword today and the clients are ready to pay money for such work. Initially there is this thrill of finding defects and once it dies down there would be nothing but boredome left due to the excessive non intellectual nature of the work. Sometimes you feel the work can be done by even an average 10th standard student and that's when you realize that the experience is not giving you any real value to sustain in the long term. I have gone through this phase and even changed a couple of workplaces thinking of greener pastures. But alas its the same everywhere atleast in these software biggies. I have worked with lots of client folks in the US who also do these type of work and earn fat checks. Microsoft Word, Excel and some such user friendly stuffs would constitute your day to day work tools. You hope to gain some domain expertise you will gain little which is not wothwhile. I might be a little disillusioned but yes if you are looking for some challenging work testing is not for you for sure.

But there is a brighter side to it too.
1. As somebody had pointed out you will get lots of freetime, so good career option for mba wannabees who would like to join mba within 2 yrs of their career.
2. Also supply of quality resources is limited and jobs are fairly easy to come by. You will land up a job in any damn good company without much effort, and the salaries are also similar to that of a developer.
3. At last there are automation testing tools( not winrunner, but performance testing tools) which are not very widely used and good working knowledge of these tools will give you an edge over others.
4. And you become a PM or PL in lesser time.

Hope this post helps. Any comments are welcome.

[rohit_s_r]

Originally Posted by siddhartham

Hi All

I had chosen software testing as a career by default without knowing much about it
initially thought the role would be similar to that in the development field ie. testing the code which is written by the developers and identifying defects. But soon realized that its purely a clerical job where in your tehnical skills are not at all required neither there is any value addition in terms of skills gained over a period of time. Quality is the latest buzzword today and the clients are ready to pay money for such work. Initially there is this thrill of finding defects and once it dies down there would be nothing but boredome left due to the excessive non intellectual nature of the work. Sometimes you feel the work can be done by even an average 10th standard student and that's when you realize that the experience is not giving you any real value to sustain in the long term. I have gone through this phase and even changed a couple of workplaces thinking of greener pastures. But alas its the same everywhere atleast in these software biggies. I have worked with lots of client folks in the US who also do these type of work and earn fat checks. Microsoft Word, Excel and some such user friendly stuffs would constitute your day to day work tools. You hope to gain some domain expertise you will gain little which is not wothwhile. I might be a little disillusioned but yes if you are looking for some challenging work testing is not for you for sure.

But there is a brighter side to it too.
1. As somebody had pointed out you will get lots of freetime, so good career option for mba wannabees who would like to join mba within 2 yrs of their career.
2. Also supply of quality resources is limited and jobs are fairly easy to come by. You will land up a job in any damn good company without much effort, and the salaries are also similar to that of a developer.
3. At last there are automation testing tools( not winrunner, but performance testing tools) which are not very widely used and good working knowledge of these tools will give you an edge over others.
4. And you become a PM or PL in lesser time.

Hope this post helps. Any comments are welcome.

is it really a clerical job????

do testers also get to have on-site(and earn those $$$$)?

here are some pointers:-
http://www.ibef.org/artdisplay.aspx?...6&art_id=10597
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/1...6,00020020.htm

what u guys think ???? i am really confused now though it has many positive sides like faster growth is it really that monotonous???what should i there coz i guess once i am in there i am in there then cant change tracks if i feel its boring and monotonous after 1-2 yrs. plz help i am really in a fix.

[siddhartham]

Originally Posted by rohit_s_r

is it really a clerical job????

do testers also get to have on-site(and earn those $$$$)?

here are some pointers:-
http://www.ibef.org/artdisplay.aspx?...6&art_id=10597
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/1...6,00020020.htm

what u guys think ???? i am really confused now though it has many positive sides like faster growth is it really that monotonous???what should i there coz i guess once i am in there i am in there then cant change tracks if i feel its boring and monotonous after 1-2 yrs. plz help i am really in a fix.

Hey Rohit,

yes its REALLY a clerical type job and so does not get much respect amongst the software
community. But as i had mentioned the same can be said only for manual testing( read checking the UI, writing test cases and doing other documentation and process related stuff) but there are some good work in automation testing which is about coding testing scripts to simulate the scenarios. But the problem is though companies expect you to understand these automation tools there are much lesser projects which implement them thoroughly. It becomes difficult to change track after u enter into testing but the reverse is not true. So many ppl who have software development experience of 2 years make a switch to testing as thre is no specialization needed to do manual tesing job. About abroad oppertunities yes testers get them but again even a developer can get into their shoes.

Well let me stop my tester bashing here.
It all depends on what your skills and interests are. Also not all the developers work in cutting edge technologies which are greatly challenging so we testers are not that worse off as i am making them out here.

Bottomline: If you are getting through a very good company as a tester then accept it and you will do well there with lesser effort also. Learn a lot about the business domain you are working in and do pick up an automation tool, some gyan on sql, pl\sql, shell scripting. And here you have arrived as a tester. Become a test manger soon and you can be freed from doing these manual stuff.
Or else if you are a CAT aspirant this is the best career u can have.
Make life a win-win proposition.
Cheers
Siddhartha

[D e e p t i]

- scary stuff for aspiring testers there siddharth!! While I do agree most of it is a lil' clerical, there is some interesting work out there - white box testing, scripting, etc.

[akhil_j]

I was just going through the discussion and found it quite interesting. I have been doing automation testing for last 4 years and the work has always been exciting.

Regarding institutions in testing, to add to the list i know one "Crestech" this is in noida and the contact number is 9310272225. One of my friends has done testing from here and he has cleared almost every interview after that. You can check this as well.

All the best Rohit

[nikhilkulk]

Originally Posted by akhil_j

One of my friends has done testing from here and he has cleared almost every interview after that.

I wonder why did your friend have to give so many interviews if he clears them all Sounds like advertising to me, but will leave that decision to the mods. Anyway phone numbers not allowed. So do remove them and send it by PM if absolutely necessary

And as far as the discussion goes, nothing in this world is perfect. Just weigh the pros and cons and decide which suits you the best. But like I said nothing better than testing if you plan to prepare for some entrances

[siddhartham]

Originally Posted by D e e p t i

- scary stuff for aspiring testers there siddharth!! While I do agree most of it is a lil' clerical, there is some interesting work out there - white box testing, scripting, etc.

Deepti,

I am not discouraging any aspiring testers here but i would like people to know what exactly they will do once they land up in a tester's job.
Developers do the unit testing (white box) and typically the testers perform black box testing ie. System Integration Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Functional Testing etc which has little scope of skill improvment.
Experienced testers please share your views on the same.

Regards,
Siddhartha

[rohit_s_r]

hey thaks for your reply guys any senior testers who can guide me better??????

[rohit_s_r]

???????????

[gaurav_del12]

well in my opinion software testing is a stupid clerical job even a 10th grader can do. dont waste ur career on it. correct me if i am wrong.