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Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
Cordially,
Matt
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Hi Matt,
When I bring a tester onto a team, I want that person to be passionate about
testing and about delivering a good product, but those are qualities that
I'd like in a programmer too!
I'd hesitate to hire someone into a testing role if that was the person's
second choice. If they're really going to be fully engaged as a tester and
they have the right attitude and skills, fine. If they see it as a role with
less worth, I wouldn't want them.
In my previous team, we hired someone in as a tester. After a year or so, he
asked if he could transition to a developer role. He took Java courses, we
hired another tester, and it worked great.
-- Lisa
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Matthew Philip <
matthew.philip@...> wrote:
>
>
> I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA
> lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are
> "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often
> blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent
> that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and
> cons?
>
> I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the
> different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different
> response.
>
> Cordially,
> Matt
>
>
>
--
Lisa Crispin
Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers
and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I agree with Lisa. As a hiring manager, I'm more inclined to hire someone
who's passionate about test and wants to make a difference from the QA
perspective. As my team becomes more agile and more 'connected' to the
development process, I expect to see some of my testers pick up more and
more programming skills. I will not ever be sad to see a tester become a
quality-oriented developer; I love the mindset of a dev who started in QA.
Managing multiple test teams in India, I have seen this phenomenon decimate
my test team. I've had serious management challenges keeping people focused
who took positions in test, just so they had their foot in the door. Some of
the test engineers would test for a week and then practically park
themselves in a dev manager's office asking for a development position. NOTE
that I did NOT make the hiring decision on any of these employees. It can be
seriously disruptive, especially after investing weeks or months of
training, only to lose the new employee.
I really want to keep that level of coding skill within my test
organization. A strong developer in test can have a huge impact on our
ability to ship quality, on time. I believe it's my role as a manager to
give each tester the experiences they are looking for which will keep them
on my team. For instance, testers earning patents is a huge win for
everyone, and it's something I drive on every team I work with (well, when
it makes sense from a business perspective). A patent not only demonstrates
an ability to code (albeit not the FINAL say in coding ability), but it also
shows a significant contribution to the company's IP.
It's critical as a lead or manager to work closely with more technical test
resources, to show them how their work is contributing to the bottom line.
This is the challenge of managing top performers!
So basically if a candidate says "Yeah, I really want to be a tester on your
team, so I can move into development" I'm going to hesitate on hiring. If an
employee, on the other hand, chooses a traditional development role as the
next step in her career, I'm going to do everything I can without
jeopardizing my deliverables to give her that experience.
And by the way, sorry for a long absence (not that anyone probably noticed).
Been terribly busy in my new role and I just can't get to every e-mail these
days. But I'm here, lurking... <grin>
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Lisa Crispin < lisa.crispin@...> wrote:
>
>
> Hi Matt,
> When I bring a tester onto a team, I want that person to be passionate
> about testing and about delivering a good product, but those are qualities
> that I'd like in a programmer too!
>
> I'd hesitate to hire someone into a testing role if that was the person's
> second choice. If they're really going to be fully engaged as a tester and
> they have the right attitude and skills, fine. If they see it as a role with
> less worth, I wouldn't want them.
>
> In my previous team, we hired someone in as a tester. After a year or so,
> he asked if he could transition to a developer role. He took Java courses,
> we hired another tester, and it worked great.
> -- Lisa
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Matthew Philip <
> matthew.philip@...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA
>> lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are
>> "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often
>> blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent
>> that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and
>> cons?
>>
>> I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the
>> different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different
>> response.
>>
>> Cordially,
>> Matt
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Lisa Crispin
> Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers
> and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
> http://lisacrispin.com>
>
>
--
John Overbaugh
blog: http://thoughtsonqa.blogspot.com
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I think Lisa has a great comment here
"If they're really going to be fully engaged as a tester and they have the right attitude and skills, fine."
If the person is going to be a passionate tester then I would be ok with hiring them. However if they have made it clear that this is just a stepping stone then I am not going to be confidant hiring them.
To me they will be doing 2 things.
1. Looking for that BBD (bigger and better deal)
2. Not giving their full emphasis to their job
I have found that what makes a great QA is their passion to getting the job done right. If someone does not have that passion there is no way they are going to be good at their job, and thus would never be a good member of the team.
Mike
--- In agile-testing@..., Lisa Crispin <lisa.crispin@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Matt,
> When I bring a tester onto a team, I want that person to be passionate about
> testing and about delivering a good product, but those are qualities that
> I'd like in a programmer too!
>
> I'd hesitate to hire someone into a testing role if that was the person's
> second choice. If they're really going to be fully engaged as a tester and
> they have the right attitude and skills, fine. If they see it as a role with
> less worth, I wouldn't want them.
>
> In my previous team, we hired someone in as a tester. After a year or so, he
> asked if he could transition to a developer role. He took Java courses, we
> hired another tester, and it worked great.
> -- Lisa
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Matthew Philip <
> matthew.philip@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA
> > lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are
> > "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often
> > blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent
> > that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and
> > cons?
> >
> > I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the
> > different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different
> > response.
> >
> > Cordially,
> > Matt
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Lisa Crispin
> Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers
> and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
> http://lisacrispin.com>
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I am developing automation tools for testing for over 15 years. For all these years work with QA and currently heading company's QA department. Though tester's profile changing over the years, one aspect has never been changed > tester or qa and developer or programmer are completely different like taxi cab driver or any professional driver and mechanic. 89 % of qa don't know and don't want to program. Why they should?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: "Matthew Philip" < matthew.philip@...>
Date: Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:46:52
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
Cordially,
Matt
|
|
Re: Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Some parts of this message have been removed.
Learn more about Nabble's security policy.
IMHO: Developers are engineers --
fixers. There mindset is to design new things and fix broke things.
Test Engineers have a different mindset. There goal is to define the
instruction set that verifies functions -- but to go beyond that. To
define the instruction sets that stresses how each function might be
used (or abused) by a customer. The Test Engineer might use
programming skills to automate as much of that "stress" test cases as
possible, when creating automation that would be consistently applied
to a regression suite. But the use of a common tool, such as Java or
Ruby, does not require the same intent or mindset.
Yes, I would argue that both of these people share programming skills
(as well as other skills), but there focus, their mindsets are
different. And very possibly, what they enjoy about their jobs are
likely different. I would go even future to say that having a valued
QA Engineer in a design meeting would widen the scope of that meeting
to include answers to question, like "how are we sure that ....", or
"how do I prove that this will result in ...". Whereas each developer
in the meeting is looking at how they would built the feature and
discrete adding functions. Their discussion would be about which
technologies provide the better fit.
In short, I would hire a developer (and have hired developers) for
Quality Assurance. I would not hire anyone who didn't really enjoy
the discipline approach to building out test plans and test. Further
more, I many of my automation test engineers have written incredible
test applications that manipulate GUIs, data, and trend results. These
are highly skilled programmers that can hold their own with many other
programmers in different fields, including software development.
Just some thoughts.
Robert Brenner
rbrenner@...
mike_longin wrote:
I think Lisa has a great comment here
"If they're really going to be fully engaged as a tester and they have
the right attitude and skills, fine."
If the person is going to be a passionate tester then I would be ok
with hiring them. However if they have made it clear that this is just
a stepping stone then I am not going to be confidant hiring them.
To me they will be doing 2 things.
1. Looking for that BBD (bigger and better deal)
2. Not giving their full emphasis to their job
I have found that what makes a great QA is their passion to getting the
job done right. If someone does not have that passion there is no way
they are going to be good at their job, and thus would never be a good
member of the team.
Mike
--- In ...,
Lisa Crispin <lisa.crispin@...> wrote:
>
> Hi Matt,
> When I bring a tester onto a team, I want that person to be
passionate about
> testing and about delivering a good product, but those are
qualities that
> I'd like in a programmer too!
>
> I'd hesitate to hire someone into a testing role if that was the
person's
> second choice. If they're really going to be fully engaged as a
tester and
> they have the right attitude and skills, fine. If they see it as a
role with
> less worth, I wouldn't want them.
>
> In my previous team, we hired someone in as a tester. After a year
or so, he
> asked if he could transition to a developer role. He took Java
courses, we
> hired another tester, and it worked great.
> -- Lisa
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Matthew Philip <
> matthew.philip@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the
tester or QA
> > lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and
that testers are
> > "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the
roles are often
> > blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but
to the extent
> > that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what
are the pros and
> > cons?
> >
> > I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering
if the
> > different composition of the group and the passage of time
yield a different
> > response.
> >
> > Cordially,
> > Matt
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Lisa Crispin
> Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide
for Testers
> and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
> http://lisacrispin.com
>
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
|
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Matthew Philip wrote:
>
>
>
> I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer
>and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and
>programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
Questions, questions, always questions...need to understand the context.
Why is the company/team taking such a "hierarchical view"? What are
the drivers that are pushing the company/team into making that
distinction? How does the company/team view the differences between
what "developers" do and what "testers" do? Does it make more sense
for the company/team to consider different views of "developers" vs
"testers"?
Personally, I would not want to work in a company, or on a team, that
makes that type of distinction or imposes that type of hierarchy.
Perhaps the company/team needs some education on the value that a
"tester" provides.
--
Mike Emeigh
MWE55inNC@...
"Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
creatures staring at you"
-- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
|
|
Re: Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Robert Brenner < rbrenner@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> IMHO: Developers are engineers -- fixers. There mindset is to design new things and fix broke things.
>
> Test Engineers have a different mindset. There goal is to define the instruction set that verifies functions -- but to go beyond that. To define the instruction sets that stresses how each function might be used (or abused) by a customer. The Test Engineer might use programming skills to automate as much of that "stress" test cases as possible, when creating automation that would be consistently applied to a regression suite. But the use of a common tool, such as Java or Ruby, does not require the same intent or mindset.
>
> Yes, I would argue that both of these people share programming skills (as well as other skills), but there focus, their mindsets are different. And very possibly, what they enjoy about their jobs are likely different. I would go even future to say that having a valued QA Engineer in a design meeting would widen the scope of that meeting to include answers to question, like "how are we sure that ....", or "how do I prove that this will result in ...". Whereas each developer in the meeting is looking at how they would built the feature and discrete adding functions. Their discussion would be about which technologies provide the better fit.
>
Their discussion might also include what design would both work and
facilitate testing. Their discussion might also include how to slice
the requirement in such a way as to maximize the most criticial
testing and other feedback earlier.
Also, testers might see holes in the requirements that neither
developers or customers see, and can ask questions of the customer to
improve the requirement even before any work starts on it.
Having some people around who can are comfortable with both mindsets
might help unify the team instead of letting it devolve into
developer-types and tester-types.
SteveG
>
> Just some thoughts.
> Robert Brenner
> rbrenner@...
>
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Let's than don't make distinction between salesman,accounting, developer. I would say that programming skills of most of qa are no different from accounting or any other non related to programming occupations within soft company. It does not diminish anyone.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Emeigh < mwe55innc@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:07:38
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Matthew Philip wrote:
>
>
>
> I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer
>and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and
>programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
Questions, questions, always questions...need to understand the context.
Why is the company/team taking such a "hierarchical view"? What are
the drivers that are pushing the company/team into making that
distinction? How does the company/team view the differences between
what "developers" do and what "testers" do? Does it make more sense
for the company/team to consider different views of "developers" vs
"testers"?
Personally, I would not want to work in a company, or on a team, that
makes that type of distinction or imposes that type of hierarchy.
Perhaps the company/team needs some education on the value that a
"tester" provides.
--
Mike Emeigh
MWE55inNC@...
"Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
creatures staring at you"
-- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
|
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Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
The theory that every QA engineer can write code leads to most common mistake when automation development assigned to qa engineers. It's all over. The result is that later there is no automation except in the managers reports or poor automation that damages the whole concept of automating tests. Automation requires above average development skills which is not typical to 90% of qa engineers. That's what most of the QA managers in many cases not willing to understand or admit.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Emeigh < mwe55innc@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:07:38
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
On Mon, Nov 2, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Matthew Philip wrote:
>
>
>
> I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer
>and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and
>programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
Questions, questions, always questions...need to understand the context.
Why is the company/team taking such a "hierarchical view"? What are
the drivers that are pushing the company/team into making that
distinction? How does the company/team view the differences between
what "developers" do and what "testers" do? Does it make more sense
for the company/team to consider different views of "developers" vs
"testers"?
Personally, I would not want to work in a company, or on a team, that
makes that type of distinction or imposes that type of hierarchy.
Perhaps the company/team needs some education on the value that a
"tester" provides.
--
Mike Emeigh
MWE55inNC@...
"Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
creatures staring at you"
-- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Some parts of this message have been removed.
Learn more about Nabble's security policy.
I personally went in the opposite direction
starting as a programmer/developer then moving company and choosing to
take a role as a Tester. Found I had a knack for testing and really
loved it. With some of the common agile practices and automation using
Ruby I get to satisfy my coder nature and do the work I love. So for me
Testing is the best of two worlds.
I think that the industry has some prejudices against testing and most
people who are competent programmers consider testing as something
beneath them, this is a shame and an opinion I hope is fading away. I
believe that a team of professionals who do interchangeably both the
Testing and Development tasks is the ideal system, but the wall between
the two roles seems unnecessarily solid for now :(
I have seen a lot of success in a system where new developers (junior
to intermediate levels) who are bought into the team are initially
placed in the test team for their first couple of weeks. This has the
benefits of allowing the newbie to explore and learn the product in a
way that provides immediate value to the company/project and would
generally be difficult if they were hired strait into a role as a
developer. It also provides the additional, unique perspectives that
help round off the testing and can temporarily bulk up the staff
numbers for the test team which are very difficult positions to fill
permanently in my experience.
Thanks,
- Ben.
Matthew Philip wrote:
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester
or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that
testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the
roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test),
but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical
view, what are the pros and cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the
different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a
different response.
Cordially,
Matt
__._,_.___
.
__,_._,___
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:56 PM, < romevsf@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> I would say that programming skills of most of qa are no different from accounting or any other non related to programming
> occupations within soft company.
That may be true in your development context. It's not true in mine
(we're developing Web-centric applications for supporting the
day-to-day activities involved in providing telecommunications
services). I don't have the programming skills that the developers
have, to be sure, but if my programming skills (I'm the only
designated QA-person here) were no better than those of a typical
non-development-related position, our group would be in serious
trouble. And if someday we ever get permission to hire a second QA
person, you can be sure that I will be looking for someone with
hands-on experience in developing test automation, which requires
quite a bit of "programming" skill (as well as domain knowledge, at
least here).
If it IS true, in your development context, that your QA people have
limited programming skills, then I wouldn't want to work there. I
recognize that there may be some contexts in which it makes sense to
have people with the programming skills of, say, a saleman doing QA
work - it just doesn't interest me.
In my experience, when management treats QA staff as "junior
developers", they do so because they misunderstand the value of what
they call "QA" - and when management is educated in the value of that
role on a project team, they stop acting as though QA is a waystation
on the road to becoming a "full" member of the development
organization. But the standard caveat ("that's my context, not
necessarily yours") applies.
--
Mike Emeigh
MWE55inNC@...
"Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
creatures staring at you"
-- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Mike works for small shop. In corporations, banks most of QA do not qualify to do not qualify to do development. What I am suggesting is much more typical case. I am sure there are cases when front desk person have degree in computer science and even development experience. It is not very common
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Emeigh < mwe55innc@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:52:15
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:56 PM, < romevsf@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> I would say that programming skills of most of qa are no different from accounting or any other non related to programming
> occupations within soft company.
That may be true in your development context. It's not true in mine
(we're developing Web-centric applications for supporting the
day-to-day activities involved in providing telecommunications
services). I don't have the programming skills that the developers
have, to be sure, but if my programming skills (I'm the only
designated QA-person here) were no better than those of a typical
non-development-related position, our group would be in serious
trouble. And if someday we ever get permission to hire a second QA
person, you can be sure that I will be looking for someone with
hands-on experience in developing test automation, which requires
quite a bit of "programming" skill (as well as domain knowledge, at
least here).
If it IS true, in your development context, that your QA people have
limited programming skills, then I wouldn't want to work there. I
recognize that there may be some contexts in which it makes sense to
have people with the programming skills of, say, a saleman doing QA
work - it just doesn't interest me.
In my experience, when management treats QA staff as "junior
developers", they do so because they misunderstand the value of what
they call "QA" - and when management is educated in the value of that
role on a project team, they stop acting as though QA is a waystation
on the road to becoming a "full" member of the development
organization. But the standard caveat ("that's my context, not
necessarily yours") applies.
--
Mike Emeigh
MWE55inNC@...
"Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
creatures staring at you"
-- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
First of all, I'd love to hire a whole bunch of instances of "Ben". Totally!
Romevsf, I think your perspective represents the current state of many
organizations - that doesn't mean it's right. I've managed teams where
testers are mouse-clickers, and I've managed teams where testers have good
programming skills. By far the latter projects have had higher success
(better value, on-time delivery, etc.). Your perspective that test teams
which need to build automation result in 'vapor ware' is very cynical. It's
all about company priorities, as well as learning from experience.
I think you can find examples where test teams staffed with dev-oriented
resources fail in their projects. But I think you'd find the overwhelming
number of teams where dev-oriented resources exist and where there's
management support for automated solutions actually result in better
outcome.
But that will not happen until organizations move away from low-paid,
low-skilled button clickers whose only responsibility is proving adherence
to spec.
John O.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:25 PM, < romevsf@...> wrote:
>
>
> Mike works for small shop. In corporations, banks most of QA do not qualify
> to do not qualify to do development. What I am suggesting is much more
> typical case. I am sure there are cases when front desk person have degree
> in computer science and even development experience. It is not very common
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
> ------------------------------
> *From: * Mike Emeigh < mwe55innc@...>
> *Date: *Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:52:15 -0500
> *To: *< agile-testing@...>
> *Subject: *Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
> programmer
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:56 PM, < romevsf@... <romevsf%40yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > I would say that programming skills of most of qa are no different from
> accounting or any other non related to programming
> > occupations within soft company.
>
> That may be true in your development context. It's not true in mine
> (we're developing Web-centric applications for supporting the
> day-to-day activities involved in providing telecommunications
> services). I don't have the programming skills that the developers
> have, to be sure, but if my programming skills (I'm the only
> designated QA-person here) were no better than those of a typical
> non-development-related position, our group would be in serious
> trouble. And if someday we ever get permission to hire a second QA
> person, you can be sure that I will be looking for someone with
> hands-on experience in developing test automation, which requires
> quite a bit of "programming" skill (as well as domain knowledge, at
> least here).
>
> If it IS true, in your development context, that your QA people have
> limited programming skills, then I wouldn't want to work there. I
> recognize that there may be some contexts in which it makes sense to
> have people with the programming skills of, say, a saleman doing QA
> work - it just doesn't interest me.
>
> In my experience, when management treats QA staff as "junior
> developers", they do so because they misunderstand the value of what
> they call "QA" - and when management is educated in the value of that
> role on a project team, they stop acting as though QA is a waystation
> on the road to becoming a "full" member of the development
> organization. But the standard caveat ("that's my context, not
> necessarily yours") applies.
> --
> Mike Emeigh
> MWE55inNC@... <MWE55inNC%40gmail.com>
>
> "Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
> as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
> no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
> creatures staring at you"
>
> -- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
>
>
--
John Overbaugh
blog: http://thoughtsonqa.blogspot.com
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
It is pointless to argue. Besides my intention was not to hurt someone feelings. QA and Programmer are two different professions. It is not an argument who is smarter or more important for business. In garment industry there is person who is responsible for final quality of shirt that you wear. No one will ask this person to design pattern. It would be absurd. Test automation is not different than any other development process.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: John Overbaugh < john.overbaugh@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:35:22
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
First of all, I'd love to hire a whole bunch of instances of "Ben". Totally!
Romevsf, I think your perspective represents the current state of many
organizations - that doesn't mean it's right. I've managed teams where
testers are mouse-clickers, and I've managed teams where testers have good
programming skills. By far the latter projects have had higher success
(better value, on-time delivery, etc.). Your perspective that test teams
which need to build automation result in 'vapor ware' is very cynical. It's
all about company priorities, as well as learning from experience.
I think you can find examples where test teams staffed with dev-oriented
resources fail in their projects. But I think you'd find the overwhelming
number of teams where dev-oriented resources exist and where there's
management support for automated solutions actually result in better
outcome.
But that will not happen until organizations move away from low-paid,
low-skilled button clickers whose only responsibility is proving adherence
to spec.
John O.
On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:25 PM, < romevsf@...> wrote:
>
>
> Mike works for small shop. In corporations, banks most of QA do not qualify
> to do not qualify to do development. What I am suggesting is much more
> typical case. I am sure there are cases when front desk person have degree
> in computer science and even development experience. It is not very common
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
> ------------------------------
> *From: * Mike Emeigh < mwe55innc@...>
> *Date: *Tue, 3 Nov 2009 15:52:15 -0500
> *To: *< agile-testing@...>
> *Subject: *Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
> programmer
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:56 PM, < romevsf@... <romevsf%40yahoo.com>>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > I would say that programming skills of most of qa are no different from
> accounting or any other non related to programming
> > occupations within soft company.
>
> That may be true in your development context. It's not true in mine
> (we're developing Web-centric applications for supporting the
> day-to-day activities involved in providing telecommunications
> services). I don't have the programming skills that the developers
> have, to be sure, but if my programming skills (I'm the only
> designated QA-person here) were no better than those of a typical
> non-development-related position, our group would be in serious
> trouble. And if someday we ever get permission to hire a second QA
> person, you can be sure that I will be looking for someone with
> hands-on experience in developing test automation, which requires
> quite a bit of "programming" skill (as well as domain knowledge, at
> least here).
>
> If it IS true, in your development context, that your QA people have
> limited programming skills, then I wouldn't want to work there. I
> recognize that there may be some contexts in which it makes sense to
> have people with the programming skills of, say, a saleman doing QA
> work - it just doesn't interest me.
>
> In my experience, when management treats QA staff as "junior
> developers", they do so because they misunderstand the value of what
> they call "QA" - and when management is educated in the value of that
> role on a project team, they stop acting as though QA is a waystation
> on the road to becoming a "full" member of the development
> organization. But the standard caveat ("that's my context, not
> necessarily yours") applies.
> --
> Mike Emeigh
> MWE55inNC@... <MWE55inNC%40gmail.com>
>
> "Our brains, for all their wonders, identify the following four things
> as being very bad for survival: Standing alone, in open territory with
> no place to hide, without a weapon, in front of a large crowd of
> creatures staring at you"
>
> -- Scott Berkun, about why people fear public speaking
>
>
--
John Overbaugh
blog: http://thoughtsonqa.blogspot.com
|
|
RE: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
There are actually quite a few us of "ex-developers" out there who turned to
testing as career enhancement.
Agile promotes whole team and blurred roles and test automation as part of
everyone's job, so I think over time we will see the trend to have more
technical testers. Personally, I like testing way more than I liked
programming and really couldn't imagine going back.
~ Janet
_____
From: agile-testing@... [mailto: agile-testing@...]
On Behalf Of Ben
Sent: November 3, 2009 1:16 PM
To: agile-testing@...
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
I personally went in the opposite direction starting as a
programmer/developer then moving company and choosing to take a role as a
Tester. Found I had a knack for testing and really loved it. With some of
the common agile practices and automation using Ruby I get to satisfy my
coder nature and do the work I love. So for me Testing is the best of two
worlds.
I think that the industry has some prejudices against testing and most
people who are competent programmers consider testing as something beneath
them, this is a shame and an opinion I hope is fading away. I believe that a
team of professionals who do interchangeably both the Testing and
Development tasks is the ideal system, but the wall between the two roles
seems unnecessarily solid for now :(
I have seen a lot of success in a system where new developers (junior to
intermediate levels) who are bought into the team are initially placed in
the test team for their first couple of weeks. This has the benefits of
allowing the newbie to explore and learn the product in a way that provides
immediate value to the company/project and would generally be difficult if
they were hired strait into a role as a developer. It also provides the
additional, unique perspectives that help round off the testing and can
temporarily bulk up the staff numbers for the test team which are very
difficult positions to fill permanently in my experience.
Thanks,
- Ben.
Matthew Philip wrote:
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA
lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are
"junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often
blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent
that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and
cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different
composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
Cordially,
Matt
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
People change careers. Nothing wrong with this. As a matter of fact first developers came from different backgrounds before computer science classes became widely spread. Again it does not mean that asking musician to write mobile application for blackberry would be appropriate. All of you who defend notion that qa can be developer talking about single cases. I am making very general statement that Qa and programmer are different trades.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message-----
From: "Janet Gregory" < janet_gregory@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:11:45
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: RE: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
There are actually quite a few us of "ex-developers" out there who turned to
testing as career enhancement.
Agile promotes whole team and blurred roles and test automation as part of
everyone's job, so I think over time we will see the trend to have more
technical testers. Personally, I like testing way more than I liked
programming and really couldn't imagine going back.
~ Janet
_____
From: agile-testing@... [mailto: agile-testing@...]
On Behalf Of Ben
Sent: November 3, 2009 1:16 PM
To: agile-testing@...
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a
programmer
I personally went in the opposite direction starting as a
programmer/developer then moving company and choosing to take a role as a
Tester. Found I had a knack for testing and really loved it. With some of
the common agile practices and automation using Ruby I get to satisfy my
coder nature and do the work I love. So for me Testing is the best of two
worlds.
I think that the industry has some prejudices against testing and most
people who are competent programmers consider testing as something beneath
them, this is a shame and an opinion I hope is fading away. I believe that a
team of professionals who do interchangeably both the Testing and
Development tasks is the ideal system, but the wall between the two roles
seems unnecessarily solid for now :(
I have seen a lot of success in a system where new developers (junior to
intermediate levels) who are bought into the team are initially placed in
the test team for their first couple of weeks. This has the benefits of
allowing the newbie to explore and learn the product in a way that provides
immediate value to the company/project and would generally be difficult if
they were hired strait into a role as a developer. It also provides the
additional, unique perspectives that help round off the testing and can
temporarily bulk up the staff numbers for the test team which are very
difficult positions to fill permanently in my experience.
Thanks,
- Ben.
Matthew Philip wrote:
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA
lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are
"junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often
blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent
that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and
cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different
composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
Cordially,
Matt
|
|
RE: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Great thread and my observations relate to none of it just my personal feelings
In Japanese Manufacturing you don't get to be involved in Quality assurance without years of experience in the design and manufacture of the item/process you are quality assuring.
QA is the highest position that people aspire towards, I am not sure what it is in western society that has deemed it to be of such low importance?
Maybe that's why Harley's break down more than Suzuki's though ?
I am interested in programming purely because I test it, I would like to know more about it because I can help the developers code better if I do
I don't want to be one
And I never want to be a button pusher verifying specs
From: agile-testing@... [mailto: agile-testing@...] On Behalf Of romevsf@...
Sent: 04 November 2009 00:55
To: agile-testing@...
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
People change careers. Nothing wrong with this. As a matter of fact first developers came from different backgrounds before computer science classes became widely spread. Again it does not mean that asking musician to write mobile application for blackberry would be appropriate. All of you who defend notion that qa can be developer talking about single cases. I am making very general statement that Qa and programmer are different trades.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
________________________________
From: "Janet Gregory" < janet_gregory@...>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:11:45 -0700
To: < agile-testing@...>
Subject: RE: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
There are actually quite a few us of "ex-developers" out there who turned to testing as career enhancement.
Agile promotes whole team and blurred roles and test automation as part of everyone's job, so I think over time we will see the trend to have more technical testers. Personally, I like testing way more than I liked programming and really couldn't imagine going back.
~ Janet
________________________________
From: agile-testing@... [mailto: agile-testing@...] On Behalf Of Ben
Sent: November 3, 2009 1:16 PM
To: agile-testing@...
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
I personally went in the opposite direction starting as a programmer/developer then moving company and choosing to take a role as a Tester. Found I had a knack for testing and really loved it. With some of the common agile practices and automation using Ruby I get to satisfy my coder nature and do the work I love. So for me Testing is the best of two worlds.
I think that the industry has some prejudices against testing and most people who are competent programmers consider testing as something beneath them, this is a shame and an opinion I hope is fading away. I believe that a team of professionals who do interchangeably both the Testing and Development tasks is the ideal system, but the wall between the two roles seems unnecessarily solid for now :(
I have seen a lot of success in a system where new developers (junior to intermediate levels) who are bought into the team are initially placed in the test team for their first couple of weeks. This has the benefits of allowing the newbie to explore and learn the product in a way that provides immediate value to the company/project and would generally be difficult if they were hired strait into a role as a developer. It also provides the additional, unique perspectives that help round off the testing and can temporarily bulk up the staff numbers for the test team which are very difficult positions to fill permanently in my experience.
Thanks,
- Ben.
Matthew Philip wrote:
I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a programmer and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program and programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
Cordially,
Matt
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
--- In agile-testing@..., Mike Emeigh <mwe55innc@...> wrote:
>
>Why is the company/team taking such a "hierarchical view"?
>What are the drivers that are pushing the company/team into
>making that distinction? How does the company/team view
>the differences between what "developers" do and what
>"testers" do? Does it make more sense for the company/team
>to consider different views of "developers" vs "testers"?
>
Mike, I work with a company where all the testers and devs are titled "Members of the technical staff", where all the testers are qualified developers, and where all testers are capable - and expected - to make committs to production code. Granted, most of the time, it's just to add an ID to an HTML element, but we can and do do it.
And, that said, I personally have come to the same conclusions as most of the generalizations on this list - developers like to build stuff, testers like to break stuff(*) and figure out how to break stuff(**).
That by having a different role, even a self-defined, self-organized version of the role, we still tend to look at the world differently.
Personally, I was a dev for a decade, then I consciously chose to become a tester. If I wanted to be a dev, I would be one. I'm all for generalists - and - there are some things I actually like to do better.
I like to test more than I like to develop AND I agree with the sentiment that teams should have some people who are multi-skilled.
That's just me talking, but I wanted to inject a data point.
(Hey, I just read your follow-up email, and it looks like we agree. Sweet.)
regards,
--heusser
(*) - Yes, yes, it's allready broken when we get it. I hope you take my meaning there.
(**) - Adding testability hooks, inserting testability into design, exploration, etc.
|
|
Re: Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
My advice to Beaton,
If you decided to do coding, than you should take c#, vb.net or any other user friendly computing classes to begin with.
Then you will know if you like it or not. Programming is very, very different task from QAing and requires completely dfferent set of skills.
Not all programmers enjoy coding and not all QA enjoy qaing - that is true. But to become a programmer requires constant exercise (writing code) 90% QA and 10% programming in spare time, which is pushed by QA Managers often to achieve automation goals never worked from my over 15 years experience with companies such as Oracle, Siebel, Opentable, etc.
Good luck and mazeltoff!
________________________________
From: "Beaton, Malcolm" < malcolm.beaton@...>
To: " agile-testing@..." < agile-testing@...>
Sent: Wed, November 4, 2009 4:14:54 AM
Subject: RE: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to becoming a programmer
Great thread and my observations relate to none of it just my
personal feelings
In Japanese Manufacturing you don’t get to be involved in
Quality assurance without years of experience in the design and manufacture of
the item/process you are quality assuring.
QA is the highest position that people aspire towards, I am not
sure what it is in western society that has deemed it to be of such low
importance?
Maybe that’s why Harley’s break down more than Suzuki’s
though ?
I am interested in programming purely because I test it, I would
like to know more about it because I can help the developers code better if I
do
I don’t want to be one
And I never want to be a button pusher verifying specs
From:agile-testing@ yahoogroups. com
[mailto:agile- testing@yahoogro ups.com] On Behalf Of romevsf@yahoo. com
Sent: 04 November 2009 00:55
To: agile-testing@ yahoogroups. com
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to
becoming a programmer
People change careers. Nothing wrong with this. As a matter of fact first
developers came from different backgrounds before computer science classes
became widely spread. Again it does not mean that asking musician to write
mobile application for blackberry would be appropriate. All of you who defend
notion that qa can be developer talking about single cases. I am making very
general statement that Qa and programmer are different trades.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
________________________________
From: "Janet Gregory" <janet_gregory@ shaw.ca>
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 17:11:45 -0700
To: <agile-testing@ yahoogroups. com>
Subject: RE: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping
stone" to becoming a programmer
There are actually quite a few us of "ex-developers" out
there who turned to testing as career enhancement.
Agile promotes whole team and blurred roles and test automation as
part of everyone's job, so I think over time we will see the trend to have more
technical testers. Personally, I like testing way more than I liked programming
and really couldn't imagine going back.
~ Janet
________________________________
From:agile-testing@ yahoogroups. com [mailto:agile- testing@yahoogro ups.com] On
Behalf Of Ben
Sent: November 3, 2009 1:16 PM
To: agile-testing@ yahoogroups. com
Subject: Re: [agile-testing] Tester as "stepping stone" to
becoming a programmer
I
personally went in the opposite direction starting as a programmer/develope r
then moving company and choosing to take a role as a Tester. Found I had a
knack for testing and really loved it. With some of the common agile practices and
automation using Ruby I get to satisfy my coder nature and do the work I love.
So for me Testing is the best of two worlds.
I think that the industry has some prejudices against testing and most people
who are competent programmers consider testing as something beneath them, this
is a shame and an opinion I hope is fading away. I believe that a team of
professionals who do interchangeably both the Testing and Development tasks is
the ideal system, but the wall between the two roles seems unnecessarily solid
for now :(
I have seen a lot of success in a system where new developers (junior to
intermediate levels) who are bought into the team are initially placed in the
test team for their first couple of weeks. This has the benefits of allowing
the newbie to explore and learn the product in a way that provides immediate
value to the company/project and would generally be difficult if they were
hired strait into a role as a developer. It also provides the additional,
unique perspectives that help round off the testing and can temporarily bulk up
the staff numbers for the test team which are very difficult positions to fill
permanently in my experience.
Thanks,
- Ben.
Matthew Philip wrote:
>
>
>>
>I'd like the group's thoughts on the mindset
>that views the tester or QA lead role as a stepping stone to becoming a
>programmer and that testers are "junior developers." Of course, on a
>good agile team, the roles are often blurred (i.e., "testers" program
>and programmers test), but to the extent that a company or team takes such a
>hierarchical view, what are the pros and cons?
>
>>I saw a thread from 2004 touching on this but I'm wondering if the different
>composition of the group and the passage of time yield a different response.
>
>>Cordially,
>>Matt
|
