The first question I was asked during an interview was "Why Testing?"! I was taken aback. I was lazy enough not to have enquired thoroughly or read the job description completely. I was under the impression that all you needed to do to develop software is write code. I mean, what else could people be doing in a software company?! Being an engineering graduate (well almost..) without an offer letter in hand, I supposed at that time any job was good enough. So, after a moments hesitation which was probably just in my head, I played along as if I had know it all along and managed to answer most of the questions satisfactorily.
Later I had another round of interview. Someway through the interview, another guy was called in to ask me more coding related questions and I thought "Now that’s more like it". Coming out from the place I thought I had impressed them enough so that they'd hire me for a junior developer position or something.
Who'd want to be just testing if a software works alright? I'm better than that!
Well, that was about 3 years ago, and I have been testing software ever since. My views about software testing and software companies of course have changed considerably since then. All along I've had doubts as to whether a testing career was the right option and should I be moving to development and so on. I have been reading blogs of well experienced testing professionals and there seems to be a lot of progress on how testing is being perceived by IT companies, students (maybe I just wasn’t paying attention in college ) and people in general.
I've seen from experience that as long as there is software to be developed you cannot do away with testing. Testing software is just as demanding as developing it, What with all the new technologies and delivery deadlines and business implications, the developers need the testers to ensure that they/we are going in the right direction and that quality software is delivered. How much of a guidance/help a tester provides does depend on his/her involvement in the overall project life-cycle and I feel a tester can make a huge difference in delivering quality software.
So how did you get into testing software?
Later I had another round of interview. Someway through the interview, another guy was called in to ask me more coding related questions and I thought "Now that’s more like it". Coming out from the place I thought I had impressed them enough so that they'd hire me for a junior developer position or something.
Who'd want to be just testing if a software works alright? I'm better than that!
Well, that was about 3 years ago, and I have been testing software ever since. My views about software testing and software companies of course have changed considerably since then. All along I've had doubts as to whether a testing career was the right option and should I be moving to development and so on. I have been reading blogs of well experienced testing professionals and there seems to be a lot of progress on how testing is being perceived by IT companies, students (maybe I just wasn’t paying attention in college ) and people in general.
I've seen from experience that as long as there is software to be developed you cannot do away with testing. Testing software is just as demanding as developing it, What with all the new technologies and delivery deadlines and business implications, the developers need the testers to ensure that they/we are going in the right direction and that quality software is delivered. How much of a guidance/help a tester provides does depend on his/her involvement in the overall project life-cycle and I feel a tester can make a huge difference in delivering quality software.
So how did you get into testing software?
