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 Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Developer/Testers Are Hard To Find

Jesse Noller just blogged "Finding Python people is hard":

Here is a good quote regarding the difficulty in finding skilled Test Engineers with Python experience:

"Either you teach QA people automation/test engineering, or you try to find a programmer who wants to learn/do test engineering and teaching them python. It's a hard sell either way. I technically view QA as one discipline, Development as another, but Test Engineering as the Hybrid of the two - and you need a strong background in both."

I have seen lots of QA Engineers and Testers with little to no development/programming experience. This seems to be such a valuable skill; why not learn some? The bar is set really low with today's dynamic languages. Getting into some quick scripting for data manipulation and building test harnesses is not a huge task. If a QA engineer can't learn some simple programming in a week, would you trust his efficiency and technical skills?

I agree with Jesse on this one. We need to see more Test Engineers and Developers In Test. Unfortunately, this hybrid roll often falls through cracks as many people view quality/testing vs. developing as a binary choice.

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#    Comments [5] |
Thursday, April 17, 2008 9:27:27 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
It seems to me that it comes down to cold hard cash, often...

If I truly develop my coding skills, couldn't I make better money in a DEV role. Why stick in QA?

On the other hand...
Actually, I prefer the freedom of developing tools for QA. I can usually choose the language, the technology stack, everything. Also, if the end result is not perfect, I generally do not lie awake at night waiting for customers to complain.

On the other hand again...
As a developer for QA, I find myself struggling with achieving a particular level of respect for my coding skills. Probably just a personal problem. I've found that to learn to develop WELL is a lonely road when you are developing for QA.
Ray Saun | ray_saunAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:48:09 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
@Ray

A toolsmith or test engineer can be compensated as well as a developer.. ive seen this many many times. So really it depends on the circumstance.

Also, many people generally like (love?) testing. These people are in their profession by choice (aren't we all?) and obviously are drawn to testing anyways. As per the original article... many people use QA as a stepping stone to Dev. These aren't the type people that will ever be good test engineers.
Corey
Friday, April 18, 2008 8:02:12 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
I completely agree on Developer/Testers are real hard to find... they are really hard to find, I agree on that too that Tester should learn some programming.
But Testers will not start doing this until they see its practical implementation and they see that the people who are doing this can do the work more efficiently. If this programming skill is not applied in Testing then what is the purpose of learning it? Haey even if you are not currently using it for better(by better i meant more efficient) testing it serve a very important purpose which is it will help you earn Respect.
It will help you earn respect from every one, developers, managers and other testers.
I absolutely hate when people decrements between testers and developers, so often is the case that Testers are the low self esteem people.
Learn some programming and use it this sure works :)
have a nice day!!

Mubbashir
Mubbashir | mubbashir11AT NOSPAMgmail dot com
Friday, April 18, 2008 8:27:41 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
@Mubbashir:

thanks for your comments.. i think we really agree.
Corey
Thursday, May 08, 2008 4:37:34 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
I have no idea if a (good) developer/tester is hard to find, at the moment I'm not in a position to need to find one. I am however looking to become one, sort of, I'd like to have the skillset to be a tester/developer and am working on it. I'm doing so because I believe it will make me a better tester, I'd like to be in a position where on a project I could be a junior developer but a senior tester.
I disagree with testers having low self esteem though, what's that about? maybe in your particular orginisation?
Tony Bruce | tonyworkAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com
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