After 7 years of career in Software Testing..

Hi Everyone,

I see so many posts here by fresh engg. graduates about software testing vs development career career related questions.

This post is just about my perspective of both the fileds after 7 years of experience in both software manual testing.

I & the famous #-Link-Snipped-# started career at the same time and in same company and we were batchmates 😀 I feel proud about it sometimes..

Since my B.TECH first year, I was interested in C programming and read the 'Let Us C' Language by Yashwanth Kanitkar so many times. [I still remember most of the syntax and I am coding in arduino with out any googling 😀 ]. One thing this book inspired me was Yashwanth kanitkar is a mechanical engineer but he was so successful in IT industry and particularly coding..

Few days after I joined my first company, we were divided into batches and Saandy & I were assigned to testing along with very few other folks. That time itself the ratio was so small, I still remember, we were 8 people in testing batch compared to 32 in Java and 32 in .Net. I did not realize for first few days that there was no coding involved in testing and I could not digest that for few days(not days..years😀)..I was so depressed and shattered. I kept asking the HR and everyone to change my track to development. Everyone in my batch even started making fun of me as I was seen as a crazy guy. I even thought of quitting the company but could not do so for personal reasons.

I was so interested in programming that I kept talking to developers and trying to understand what exactly they do. During those years, most of the developers used to attend either SUN Tech Days by Sun microsystems or Microsoft .NET events but there were no such events for testers. It was discouraging even more for me. There was one north indian girl in my testing batch(saandy knows her very well 😀), who came to me one day and said "If you are so interested in development, why don't you do some certification in develop and then ask for development".

Apart of 'C' language, I had no idea about which one to choose either Java or .Net but I heard from people that .NET involves less coding compared to Java. I chose Java simply because it was free & easy to install on my computer compared to Visual Studio. I started reading Java and completed SCJP certification. By this time, I completed 1.5 years in Software Manual Testing. I asked testing Sr.Manager to change my track to development but his only theory was even I have SCJP certification but I am still the head of software testing division for hyderabad. He finally said 'No'. I am not exactly sure but I think by this time saandy switched to a different company and we were never in contact.

In the meanwhile I appeared for Wipro, attended Infosys twice and few other small companies but I could never clear because my english was so bad. I think you all agree with me on this 😀

I kept studying Java and cleared SCWCD, SCBCD certifications and I developed even few tools using Java AWT library. I started volunteering myself for Java related projects on sourceforge.net. During this time,There was one bangalore guy looking for Java developer for his project on sourceforge and I started submitting patches to the existing bugs in his project. He would review my code before committing to the project and suggest changes on my style of coding. He closed the project after few months as he got busy with his office work but he encouraged me that I should keep working on my coding skills if I ever want to become a developer.

After 4 years, I got onsite opportunity in software testing and travelled here.Meanwhile I learnt about QTP but it did not interest me much as it uses VBA language, which microsoft stopped supporting long time ago. As Java was open source, I started using all the open source tools and installed linux(ubuntu). Since then I am using Ubuntu as OS on my personal computer/laptop. This was also one reason I liked selenium but not QTP.

After coming to U.S., I saw so many americans with 20 years of experience in coding. Though I was still manual tester, I found selenium interesting as you can code in Java and moreover it is developer in Java. I used to spend most of my time either in Javaranch(now it is coderanch) or stackoverflow.com or selenium google groups. I tried tirelessly to become committer for the selenium project but they would never accept my patches as their standard were too high.

Meanwhile I got married to a girl who is a developer by force but not by choice 😀 As I can learn any language quickly, I learnt Javascript, Jquery and another programming language and started working for her. She would always says why I was doing testing when I can do development and earn more $$$..

So Finally, I took a big jump and started appearing for interviews here in america and it was easy to convince white people about my passion and interest and they did not care much about my testing background and offered me Sr. Developer role for a high billing rate.

After 7 years of experience in Software manual testing, I became a Sr.Developer in a product based company and my day starts with coding and ends with coding here.

I hope there is someone like me who is interested in coding but stuck in manual testing. If you are reading this post and if you are like me, never lose hope and you will become developer coder one day.

I am not saying all this because I feel like I acheived something in my life but I feel happy and satisfied everyday when I go to bed that someone out there is using the application that I coded..that gives me immense satisfaction.

For all the engineering graduates who are still confused about testing vs development..There is no such thing..there is only coding..If you are a engineering graduate you gotta be coding.

Just a few facts about software testing in general:
There is no seperate department for testing in Facebook, Developers are responsible for creating their own tests. If you are a tester and no interest in coding then you can never apply for any of the testing positions at companies like google,amazon,Ebay etc.. Because all of these companies require coding.

I have seen testers reporting to a development manager but developers never report to a testing manager.
I have seen people who switch easily from development to testing even after having >5 years of experience in testing but the other way is so tough.. The immediate question people ask is can you compete with the people who are coding with same experience as you but they don't ask the same question to the developer who wants to switch to testing.
Here in America, Most of the manual testing positions are filled by females and the billing rate is coniderably lesser than an automated tester.

OK..Good night fellas..Hope this thread gets some attention and replies as well😀