I’m currently a software developer and for the past year I have been looking to make the move in to test.
In my quest to move I’ve been trying to asses what testers are up to these days, what the requested skill set is etc. I was surprised by how many roles requested ISTQB on the job profile but when I got to interview it was just a box ticking exercise. The majority of interviewers stated they didn’t really think much of the qualification as it was fairly dated, instead they recommended looking at BCS Agile Testing or Rapid Software Testing!
In my quest to move disciplines I’ve also been really surprised by the number of companies who seek fairly techy skills. I know many talented testers who’ve been testing for a long time and so asked them about some of the desireable skills mentioned in a few of the more recent job adverts I had seen.
Desirable:
- Experience testing web applications (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and/or web services (REST, SOAP)
- Experience with BDD, Cucumber
- Coding automated tests with Java, JavaScript or similar languages. Experience with frameworks such as Protractor, Selenium Webdriver, > * REST Assured or similar
- Experience with Continuous Integration / Delivery pipelines and tools such as Jenkins
- Linux command-line / bash scripting or similar
The majority of testers I’d spoken with had heard of the above but had very little experience in actually using any of the above. Are companies being greedy and expecting to much or is this the natural shift in the QA world?
I was lucky enough to be offered the above role which unfortunately I had to turn down due to the travel but have since been offered two other test roles similar to the above. In my attempt to switch from developer to tester I’ve applied for three jobs, all which have been offered to me but can’t help but think if I hadn’t come from a coding background I’d have struggled in the process possibly?
It seems these days you need to be able to write or at least understand some basic html, css, javascript and possible get down to code level with Selenium Webdriver (which the last 5 jobs adverts I saw requested).
In each interview the interviewers tended to ask some very basic testing questions (what is black box testing, white box, what is quality, boundary testing, regression etc..) and then it jumps quickly in to a very technical conversation. Is this because of my background or is this the way testing is going? I don’t know?
Testers should be automating what’s right not everything.
