testiloquent

Testing-Essentials ▪ Think Like a Tester ▪ Test Strategy ▪ Test Tooling, Automation ▪ Test Analysis and -Design ▪ Performing Tests and Reporting ▪ Appendix

Continous Learning and Your Testing Career

The Lay of the Land (Through My Eyes)

The information in this section is based on my observations and experience working in financial services. It may not reflect the experience of software testers in other industries.

Entering the Swiss IT Job Market

If your educational and career background is non-standard for Switzerland, landing a job in IT can be tricky. People who grew up in Switzerland commonly have one of the following backstories when they are just getting started in their IT careers:

They have completed a 4-year ICT apprenticeship.
They are experienced professionals in another field, employed at a company with open positions in the IT department, who have studied nights and weekends to gain an ICT college diploma or ICT university degree (their employer might have paid their expenses and given them paid leave for school days).
They have just graduated from an ICT university program.

Group	Advantages / Strengths	Disadvantages / Weaknesses
Apprentices	Apprentices are insiders. They will have worked with multiple teams in the IT department over the course of their training, so have had plenty of opportunities to build up an internal network, and ample time to familiarize themselves with the company’s business and culture. They will be kept on by the company that trained them, or find a job at another company that has open positions for junior staff members.	Because of their youth, their life and work experience is still quite limited. In order to advance their career beyond entry-level roles, within a couple of years on the job, they will need to make arrangements to return to school for a college diploma
Career changers	Those who make the change with their company’s support will have the advantages of being insiders. Furthermore they benefit from a broader work experience than people without second careers, and in the years spent retraining, they will have developed the skills necessary to juggle work, studies and perhaps family duties.	Due to them being experienced professionals, career changers are less likely than apprentices to take on junior roles in IT. Depending on their education / the type of profession they are transitioning from, their technical skills may not be as solid as they need to be at first
University graduates	Companies will have scooped them up at job fairs before the ink is dry on their degrees, as people with an academic background tend to possess know-how and skills that are in high demand	Some of these graduates may have gone straight from high school to university, have taken summer jobs and internships only in IT. As a consequence, such individuals may have limited life and work experience which - depending on their role, the industry and the organisational culture - can put them at a disadvantage

Test Specialist Career Paths

When doing research for this article, I discovered that Swiss ICT doesn’t expect much from testers. Without broadening their knowledge and strengthening their skills beyond what this role description demands, I expect that testers based in Switzerland could face difficulty staying in work long-term.

Test Management

A decade ago, experienced testers could move to test management roles, but as companies whose IT departments have not transitioned to Agile SW development are increasingly rare, so has the need for test managers.

Agile and DevOps teams “own” most aspects of the software they build and maintain, including the product quality. The teams are also responsible for implementing quality assurance measures, including tasks that in a waterfall project would have been done by a test manager. While there are fewer test-specific management roles to fill, testers can advance their career by developing industry-specific know-how and / or technical specialization skills.

Test Automation Engineer

Agile software development aims to deliver value quickly. Agile teams use automation for routine tasks that can be performed algorithmically. Beyond unit testing, other technology-facing tests such as contract testing at the integration level are candidates for automation. Teams frequently also identify test scenarios at the system level that they want to run as the system changes to check for regressions.

Other Specializations

Specializations in the testing field that come to mind:

DevOps
Security
Big data
LLM/AI

It’s Just a Job. Or Is It?

You’ll discover that the offices of IT departments aren’t filled to the brim with paragons of honour, unbendingly committed to excellence and mastery of their craft. While this can be a bit disheartening, I submit that you can decide to take the high road, and be pleasantly surprised to find that you’re in good company, that others have joined you. Together, you may just find a way to effect positive change in your organisation.

There are, of course, incurably toxic work cultures. Should you ever find yourself working in such a place, being aware of who you are, what you stand for and which “hills you’re willing to die on” can help you decide if and when it’s time to cut your losses and look for work elsewhere.

I’m including the quote below, not because what I believe what he’s describing is inevitable, but because I believe while the risk is real, being aware of it means you can take measures to mitigate it.

Jobs at software companies are typically advertised in terms of the difficult problems that need solving, the impact the project will have, the benefits the company provides, the playful color of the bean bag chairs. Likewise, jobs in other fields have their own set of metrics that they use to position themselves within their domains.

As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there.

They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look. It sounds obvious, but it’s amazing how often young people imagine a different projection for themselves.

Look at the real people, and you’ll see the honest future for yourself. – Moxie Marlinspike

Developing and Strengthening Skills

Teach Others

“The best way to learn something is to teach it. In other words, whoever explains learns.” – David Sousa

Learn With Others

Embark on a learning journey

Join Testing Communities

The Ministry of Testing (MoT) and the Association for Software Testing (AST) are engaged in training and enabling testers, and have active international communities.

The Ministry of Testing’s forum is hosted on its website. Posting is reserved for MoT members, but its contents can be read by the general public.

The AST community is open to members and meets on Slack. AST membership fees start at USD 10 per year and come with additional benefits, such ~40% off the BBST community track training fees.