Entry Level Software Developer or Tester

Cen taurus

Hi

I'm graduating college soon and looking to find an entry level position in IT as a developer or tester.

I've good grades in all my exams, and I have the basics of a few programming languages, that you'd expect to obtain in college, but not professional experience as such.

I think I would prefer development a little bit more than quality assurance testing, because I fell like programming myself, rather than testing other peoples programmes, but that might be the wrong view of it, I'm not against a career in testing either, I just don't know as much about it as a career path or how interesting it would be as opposed to development ? In fact in the long term, it might be a better choice as there may be too many people seeking to be developers all the time and too few seeking to be testers ?

The advice I often hear, to get that first job in development/testing, is to have some projects done demonstrating your ability and interest in a particular language.

How sophisticated and original (in terms of ideas) do these sample projects have to be in terms of securing your first Job. Can anyone give practical examples of the average standard of sample projects you'd expect to see as an interviewer. How should these projects be presented ? By email or handed in on a thumb drive at interview etc.

I'm a bit green when it comes to all this, and what is expected of me in my first development/testing job, and what a typical work day in the first year or two as an entry level developer/tester will consist of.

I'd like to have an idea, so that even if I don't secure a job straight away, I can work towards becoming an effective and productive employee and team member for when I do get a job.

Any other advice would be appreciated.

Cen taurus

Maybe I didn't put this thread in the right place, if so my apologies, how do I move it to the technology forum, would that be a better place for it ?

SoftMicro

Cen taurus wrote: »

Maybe I didn't put this thread in the right place, if so my apologies, how do I move it to the technology forum, would that be a better place for it ?

A mod can move it. Friday night they're probably in the pub or feeding their cats so they could move it the next day or so after their hangovers clear or return from walking their dogs.

There might be some posters here that could lend their opinions but they're all probably locked now also. Give it time...they will come.

Jim2007

Imagine a young person going for a job as an apprentice block layer and when he turns at the potential employers business he's asked if they could see a couple of houses he has already built! That is what it's like in software engineering today, if you want to land a top graduate position. Another good analogy is recruiting graphic artists - you expect them to have a portfolio of work to demonstrate their talents, only in our case it is Github repositories!

Most of the graduates that I have recruited in the last five years have and at least 2.1 degree, involvement in open source projects, released software themselves, built machines, networks and so on. They are into IT, it is not just something they did at college, when you talk to them you see that the live and breath the stuff.

So you really need to start building up a portfolio of some kind to demonstrate you skills and the fact that you are really interested in the stuff. Many of the people involved in the recruiting process are Geeks and they can be expected to employ other Geeks, so be ready to show your geek side :-)

SoftMicro

I came across a job spec for junior developer roles and they mentioned supplying examples of coding through github. Not sure how common that is, but it's what i read.

Jim2007

SoftMicro wrote: »

I came across a job spec for junior developer roles and they mentioned supplying examples of coding through github. Not sure how common that is, but it's what i read.

Even my 13 year old daughter has a GitHub account! She does a lot of graphic and animation stuff.

SoftMicro

Jim2007 wrote: »

Even my 13 year old daughter has a GitHub account! She does a lot of graphic and animation stuff.

Do you think that would that be a good place for the OP to display some coding examples? I'm intrigued about this GitHub now, must check it out to see what the craic is with it.

Cen taurus

I've done very well in all my exams so far and really enjoyed it when many others left/dropped out/felt it was not for them, but having read your standards, I fear I may not be an emerging new premiership level footballer/prodigy in developer/tester terms just yet, so I might be out of your league. So, although I might not be premier league standard, I am a hard worker, reliable, self-learner and a team player, I'm just not sure what are the best personal projects to start working on to secure that first job.

I'm more than happy to spend hours on my own personal IT projects when my college work eases off, and it'll keep me focused and my skills fresh while I'm looking for work, but before I invest the time doing so, I'd like to get an idea of what level of projects to do, and some practical, realistic and achievable examples so I head off on the right track/tangent.

Mr. Loverman

Be warned that it's hard to move from testing into development, so if you want to be a developer you should start as a developer.

Good luck.

professore

Cen taurus wrote: »

I've done very well in all my exams so far and really enjoyed it when many others left/dropped out/felt it was not for them, but having read your standards, I fear I may not be an emerging new premiership level footballer/prodigy in developer/tester terms just yet, so I might be out of your league. So, although I might not be premier league standard, I am a hard worker, reliable, self-learner and a team player, I'm just not sure what are the best personal projects to start working on to secure that first job.

I'm more than happy to spend hours on my own personal IT projects when my college work eases off, and it'll keep me focused and my skills fresh while I'm looking for work, but before I invest the time doing so, I'd like to get an idea of what level of projects to do, and some practical, realistic and achievable examples so I head off on the right track/tangent.

Sign up for a freelancing site and take your pick. Start small - coding for college projects is NOT like coding for a customer.

Manach

One of the reasons a potential employer might ask about a project is to see how well you interact with others. QA/Dev is in large measure done as a team, so both projects which involve other people or else non-IT team activities should be emphasised. Good luck in hunt.

Cen taurus

Thanks for the advice so far, yes I would agree it needs to be something a bit higher in standard than a college project, but at the same time, still realistic and achievable for a newbie.

Would anyone have any practical and / or recent and achievable examples they have come across, that's what I'm really looking for here.

professore wrote: »

Sign up for a freelancing site and take your pick. Start small - coding for college projects is NOT like coding for a customer.

I agree, that's exactly why I'd like to do a few more of my own small sample/demo projects, outside college, to form a portfolio, before I unleash myself on any customers.

Boskowski

It all depends, some companies won't let you near code unless you have done some time in for example in-house support. Other companies throw you right in at the deep end. But the last two companies I worked things would have been a little like this...:

First you'll be assigned to the team hired for or according to their expected skill set. You'll probably be given a mentor who is your point of contact for the first few months. Typically a senior guy in the team you're gong to be working for. Usually not a manager.
There you would have to go through some ramp up time which could be anything from one week to a couple of months. During that phase you will have to go through some introductory courses concerning some business know-how i.e. if you work for an insurance company you will have to learn about insurance fundamentals, policy life cycle, bladibla etc. Also general courses or inductions as we call them on how things are done here and generally be shown the ropes by the manger/mentor or simply other team members. There may also be 'bigger' courses i.e. maybe 3 day training on SQL or front-end development or whatever is required.
Eventually you will be given smaller, self-contained development packages, typically maintenance and bug fixes of existing stuff first. At first you will be probably micro-managed as they have no idea what you're like, but your mentor will fairly quickly suss out how capable you are and then things progress from there.

As for the choice...

Some people (probably testers) will disagree with me but I don't think it takes a lot to be a tester. At least at the beginning all you'd do is execute test plans others have written for you. Click here, enter this, check for that. If I was into outrageous exaggeration I'd say I could train a monkey to do it. Me personally I'd be bored to death. Not saying software development is akin to brain surgery or anything but its definitely more challenging than testing.
That in itself is not a problem, may even sound nice to some to easy yourself into IT. But the thing is I have seen a lot of people transfer into development from other areas like support, BSA , reporting, but never from the test department. At least in my company the QA department would be a one way street and if you have any ambition to write code yourself one day you'd want to stay away from testing.

Cen taurus

Thanks Boskowski for lifting the veil a little for me.

I've heard that testers that are into coding can help write a lot of automation tools to be used in house, and that they through time, will become better paid than ordinary testers is this correct ? Also I'm thinking there may be more opportunities for talented people to shine in testing, if most of the talented people are trying to get into development ? I.e. rather than following the herd ?

Also I would not like to give up coding if I become a tester, but I would like to carry it on in my own spare time, on my own projects. Whereas if I was doing development projects all day, I might not have the will/energy to code and develop my own projects when I get home as well, so I see advantages in testing as a day job in that regard.

Mr. Loverman

Boskowski wrote: »

Some people (probably testers) will disagree with me but I don't think it takes a lot to be a tester.

Haha, I hear this all the time. Testing is actually much harder than development. It's basically an impossible job. And highly political. And completely thankless. In fact, you can only lose when you work as a tester. Allow the crappy software to get released? Management will hate you. Block the crappy software from being released? Management will hate you.

Testing has got to be the least understood job in IT.

The money is good but in the end it's not worth it. Avoid testing if possible.

Boskowski

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Haha, I hear this all the time. Testing is actually much harder than development. It's basically an impossible job. And highly political. And completely thankless. In fact, you can only lose when you work as a tester. Allow the crappy software to get released? Management will hate you. Block the crappy software from being released? Management will hate you.

Testing has got to be the least understood job in IT.

The money is good but in the end it's not worth it. Avoid testing if possible.

Thats a fair enough statement for senior testers and management. As a junior tester I find it hard to believe how it can be harder than development. You get your test plan that was written for you from the functional & business specs and check whether it does what it should do or not. Very little creativity or initiative required at least in the places I've seen.
As for the other stuff I can see where you're coming from but we're talking about entry level here where you won't be anywhere near political decisions.

Edit:
Actually management will 'hate you' no matter what. When you look at software development and all the different methodologies that emerged over the last I don't know 20 years - most of them are concerned with the fact that corporates try to make software development manageable in terms of time and cost and reduce the human element. They don't like the creative side of it, they hate the ever changing technologies and increasing complexities and the unpredictability that comes with all of it. They would ideally want software development to be like conveyor belt manufacturing. Some even think they can measure quality by lines of code produced. Like you write 500 lines of code a day you're soso, you write 750 lines of code a day you're great. :pac:

Boskowski

Cen taurus wrote: »

Thanks Boskowski for lifting the veil a little for me.

I've heard that testers that are into coding can help write a lot of automation tools to be used in house, and that they through time, will become better paid than ordinary testers is this correct ? Also I'm thinking there may be more opportunities for talented people to shine in testing, if most of the talented people are trying to get into development ? I.e. rather than following the herd ?

Also I would not like to give up coding if I become a tester, but I would like to carry it on in my own spare time, on my own projects. Whereas if I was doing development projects all day, I might not have the will/energy to code and develop my own projects when I get home as well, so I see advantages in testing as a day job in that regard.

I'm sure there are places like that where initiative as a tester is welcome and where a tester needs coding skills and can move up the ladder based on technical merits. I'd say I'm probably just a little brainwashed from the last few places I worked for where I've seen none of that. I agree that smart testers do stand out but so do smart developers.

I like to believe that if you're smart and motivated and take your job seriously you will go up no matter what you do. In the last two companies I have worked for it just happens to be the case that not a single tester ever transitioned to development.

Mr. Loverman

It depends on the company. Normally ad hoc testing is required at all levels, and that needs a lot of creativity.

In general I agree with you though, junior testers don't have a hard life.

Cen taurus

Would it be fair to say good testers have good diplomacy and people skills ?

irishgrover

Boskowski wrote:

Some people (probably testers) will disagree with me but I don't think it takes a lot to be a tester. At least at the beginning all you'd do is execute test plans others have written for you. Click here, enter this, check for that. If I was into outrageous exaggeration I'd say I could train a monkey to do it. Me personally I'd be bored to death. Not saying software development is akin to brain surgery or anything but its definitely more challenging than testing. That in itself is not a problem, may even sound nice to some to easy yourself into IT. But the thing is I have seen a lot of people transfer into development from other areas like support, BSA , reporting, but never from the test department. At least in my company the QA department would be a one way street and if you have any ambition to write code yourself one day you'd want to stay away from testing.

I'd agree with this post if a) it was 1993 or b) if I worked in a ****ty software house, I'm thinking something like a financial services IT department, doing PL SQL type development, probably waterfall SDLC, but pretending to dabble in agile, cause it sounds cool, with one trick pony developers and script monkey manual testers.
if you have the option to be picky I would look at the industry as much as I would look at the job role. If the company is reliant primarily on manual script monkey testing, there is a very good probability that the development opportunities are equally uninspired.....

Mr. Loverman

Cen taurus wrote: »

Would it be fair to say good testers have good diplomacy and people skills ?

Yes that is part of the job. Many developers take it personally when you log a bug against something they wrote.

Cen taurus

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

Yes that is part of the job. Many developers take it personally when you log a bug against something they wrote, so you need to be gentle.

You'd think they'd be happy to have it caught before it was released.

Mr. Loverman

Cen taurus wrote: »

You'd think they'd be happy to have it caught before it was released.

Some are of course, but unfortunately many developers are total weirdos. The hardest part of working in IT is the people.

Boskowski

Id say that's true no matter where you work. People skills go a long way. But moreso m management rather than grunt level testing or development.

Boskowski

irishgrover wrote: »

I'd agree with this post if a) it was 1993 or b) if I worked in a ****ty software house, I'm thinking something like a financial services IT department, doing PL SQL type development, probably waterfall SDLC, but pretending to dabble in agile, cause it sounds cool, with one trick pony developers and script monkey manual testers.
if you have the option to be picky I would look at the industry as much as I would look at the job role. If the company is reliant primarily on manual script monkey testing, there is a very good probability that the development opportunities are equally uninspired.....

Agreed. It all depends on the environment.

You'd be surprised on psql and such, it's pretty much alive. For a lot financials its data data data and some have legacy stuff still going on mainframes. Not so long ago I worked in a place where the most important guys were the cobol developers.

Admittedly my experience would be more coming from internal IT departments of big banks, insurances and the like.
That would be very different from Google or angry birds I'm sure.

Jim2007

SoftMicro wrote: »

Do you think that would that be a good place for the OP to display some coding examples? I'm intrigued about this GitHub now, must check it out to see what the craic is with it.

Well it is the place at the moment! Even if you don't put it on your cv we'll scan it and stack overflow to see if you are doing anything interesting.

Tar.Aldarion

Personally it just took my college projects to get a job, I didn't and never have committed to anything outside of college or work yet. Explain how you went about them, reasoning, method and so on. However it certainly won't harm your chances to do something extracurricular of course. Often I have found people value people that dont just live and breathe tech, they want people that get on well with others, and are well rounded. Most developers in my work don't even use/have a PC at home. If working on projects just doing something simple for open source would be well received.

Jim2007

Cen taurus wrote: »

I am a hard worker, reliable, self-learner and a team player, I'm just not sure what are the best personal projects to start working on to secure that first job.

I invest the time doing so, I'd like to get an idea of what level of projects to do, and some practical, realistic and achievable examples so I head off on the right track/tangent.

The best type of project to work on is something that you are passionate about.

One guy I was talkin to a few weeks ago is a member of a team working on a project to develop a mobile platform that can be brought up quickly to support aid workers during a natural disaster.

Another guy was working an a DSL to simply the task of defining holiday calendars for inclusion in databases. What he has done is not rocket science, but it is a very elegant and simple solution to an age old problem.

Go have a look on GitHub and see what others are doing.

Cen taurus

Thanks for all the advice and opinions folks, I guess I'm finding it hard to pick projects.

Any advice on the what not to do in the first few weeks / months of that first job ?

LilRedDorcha

I started a conversion course in September so I'm only learning 2 programming languages. I managed to get hired recently for a graduate position in development and I have very little done compared to some 4th years applying for the same jobs. I did this small little project with a friend over the break and put it on my LinkedIn page and on GitHub. I have both of those on my CV so employers can go have a look if they want. I think only one of them actually had a look at it.

What I found was that if you have good grades and show you're interested in it, you'll be fine. I got the impression that the projects are just shown as a way to prove that you have an interest outside of college. I was asked about if I did things outside of class since I had programming listed as a hobby and then I went on about the few projects I did. They were all really basic little things that were less than 100 lines of code but it showed that I was at least trying to learn more outside of class.

Show that you're a team player, that you're enthusiastic about programming, and then have the grades to back it up and you'll be fine I think. Have you tried applying to any graduate programmes?

Cen taurus

No but I will be soon, so I'd like to have a few underway. What kind of projects did you do ?

Cen taurus

PM recieved thank you, that gives me an idea.

That's what I'm after, examples of realistic sample projects employers will accept as evidence of an intrest outside of college.

Cen taurus

If I tried a testing job, could I switch to development after a year or so if I didn't like it ?

SoftMicro

Cen taurus wrote: »

If I tried a testing job, could I switch to development after a year or so if I didn't like it ?

I think one of the previous posters mentioned that it was difficult to move from one to the other and to go in as a developer from that the start. Would be interesting if they could elaborate on that point for you.

beauf

I think testing can be useful experience for a developer. But I don't think recruiters want to see it on a developer cv. Its probably a negative and a distraction to the developer. Its really a separate career path.

Cen taurus

beauf wrote: »

I think testing can be useful experience for a developer. But I don't think recruiters want to see it on a developer cv. Its probably a negative and a distraction to the developer. Its really a separate career path.

Could you switch after a year though and start over again in an entry level career in software development instead, if you had a keen interest in programming, that's what I'm asking? Thanks.

doc11

LilRedDorcha wrote: »

I started a conversion course in September so I'm only learning 2 programming languages. I managed to get hired recently for a graduate position in development and I have very little done compared to some 4th years applying for the same jobs. I did this small little project with a friend over the break and put it on my LinkedIn page and on GitHub. I have both of those on my CV so employers can go have a look if they want. I think only one of them actually had a look at it.

What I found was that if you have good grades and show you're interested in it, you'll be fine. I got the impression that the projects are just shown as a way to prove that you have an interest outside of college. I was asked about if I did things outside of class since I had programming listed as a hobby and then I went on about the few projects I did. They were all really basic little things that were less than 100 lines of code but it showed that I was at least trying to learn more outside of class.

Show that you're a team player, that you're enthusiastic about programming, and then have the grades to back it up and you'll be fine I think. Have you tried applying to any graduate programmes?

Are you Female? With regard IT they're lower standards with regards girls due to the fact it's a male dominated industry.

beauf

Cen taurus wrote: »

Could you switch after a year though and start over again in an entry level career in software development instead, if you had a keen interest in programming, that's what I'm asking? Thanks.

Why would you want to do that. Delay starting in development

Cen taurus

beauf wrote: »

Why would you want to do that. Delay starting in development

Because there might be a better career in testing if everyone else wants to be a developer, also I might like testing, and I read its supposed to be less stressful.

RedXIV

Hey OP,

In my experience, getting a manual testing job is a piece of cake, you need the most bare bones knowledge of IT to get in as a graduate, and as someone capable of development, you're well above the bar needed. Manual testing is very easy from a technical perspective but as mentioned by others, you will need to do more paperwork, management and reports etc.

When you get to a more senior role in testing, especially in a big established company, its almost all about the political game and reports. Dealing with people. In more modern, technical companies, you'll get to play with more technology. I've done both, and the combination really helped. When I started, I was in a huge bureaucratic company which forced me to learn to deal with multiple teams, offshore resources and various types of manager. Then I went to a small techy start up and got to learn about technical QA, automation testing, performance testing and scripting. And I've moved to something in between now and really enjoying it.

I was very lucky that I was able to get these skillsets so early into my career, and I've been able to climb the career ladder pretty quickly now. A good technical QA is very hard to find.

I've found that even technical QA's will never be quite as technically competent as developers though so if you're really interesting in the techy stuff, go for the development route. You pointed out that there are plenty of developers to compete for jobs but in reality, there are tons of developer roles. Most tech teams have 3/4 devs for every QA.

I went to testing because I wasn't confident in my technical ability and I've got to be honest, I think if you enjoy programming, you'd be crazy to start testing. A good developer will always find work!

P.S. testing is plenty stressful testing schedule ALWAYS gets squeezed, and the buck stops at QA. If a product comes out with issues, it doesn't matter who built it, but the question will be why did QA miss it

beauf

Cen taurus wrote: »

Because there might be a better career in testing if everyone else wants to be a developer, also I might like testing, and I read its supposed to be less stressful.

Try development then try testing.

Much harder the other way round.

Cen taurus

Thanks Red for the great answer.

I really like programming, but I'm worried I may not be fast enough and produce enough volume for managers, I'm more of a quality than quantity type person when it comes to coding and I'm a little bit slow compared to some of the whiz kids in my year, but my stuff always works better, and looks better than theirs in the long run and with less errors

But I'm worried some managers may notice/pick up on quantity more than quality, and miss the quality of my code, so I might be better to do testing for the day job, and I can always continue coding as a hobby and do what I want in that direction.

If I really don't like testing after my first year or so, I can always start over in development, it's not the end of the world. I'd hate to enter the wrong stream and realise 5 years later I should have went the other route. Ah well, that's dilemma’s for you, and not really a bad one as dilemmas go

Cen taurus

beauf wrote: »

Try development then try testing.

Much harder the other way round.

There's another factor to my dilema though. There is an employer very near to where I live who has been taking on testers in the last few years, but not developers, and a local job would really suit me.

beauf

I dunno why you're so fearful of development. I wonder has someone been telling you horror stories or something.

Cen taurus

beauf wrote: »

I dunno why you're so fearful of development. I wonder has someone been telling you horror stories or something.

That sounds very dramatic

I'm just discussing my options, and looking for as much info as I can about peoples experiences of both career paths and their real world advice and experiences, so I can make the best informed decision I can.

Have you any thoughts and experience on testing or development as a career, or advice on examples of development projects ?

Mr. Loverman

As beauf said, go into development first. You can always fall back into testing. Testing managers like to hire ex-developers.

Manual testing isn't easy. I managed testers for years and the reality is the people who think it's easy are the bad testers. I used a lot of technical skills during my testing. You need to if you want to test beyond a superficial level.

Most people can't do testing, and most people hate it.

Same goes for development.

If you take a testing job you will struggle to move into development.

irishgrover

doc11 wrote: »

Are you Female? With regard IT they're lower standards with regards girls due to the fact it's a male dominated industry.

What? (on so many levels, for so many reasons....)

irishgrover

To the OP,
first and foremost, best of luck with whatever you choose.....
If I was you I would decide what type of experience you want.....and target that industry and company type directly..
1. The most basic question is software house Versus IT dept in a non software house.
2. Then think about the maturity of company. Personally I don't think you have lived (from an IT perspective) until you have gone through a few failed start ups. The fun, excitement and team work is something special, but that has to be tempered with working crazy hours and then the probability that one day the cash will dry up, you won't get paid and suddenly find yourself unemployed.
3. If you want to go safer and learn "process" then look to one of the big consultancy companies, eg accenture, deloitte, Cap Gemini, what you learn their you can re-use forever etc
4. If you want to play it safe but be very employable for the rest of your life, do 2 years in a software company, followed by 2 years in a financial services company, followed my 2 years in a telco company (billing)

With regards Development Versus Testing - it really depends on what interests you. Both fields are very varied in a load of different ways. I would try to get exposure to both, but be aware that they are very different. In addition don't forget other elements of IT, architecture, systems administration, Database administration, Release management / version control, Business Analysis, security etc... it's a very wide and complex field.

I would advice that you expose yourself to as much information, sample projects and tools as you can. With regards to projects you can do on your own, for future showing off... I would suggest be bold, and do something from scratch, start to finish, don't think about it in terms of just development or testing. For example pick a project, then sit down and write a detailed requirements document (version control all your documents), or appropriate use cases or user stories. Then write the technical specification and write the code. Document and execute the unit testing. Write a test plan, write system and acceptance test cases, execute them, automate them, log and fix defects for yourself. Write an project completion report, lessons learned etc.

And do this using the appropriate tools, eg alfresco for document management, Jira or bugzilla for incident management, Jira add on or TestLink for testcases, selenium for automation, eclipse for development. All of these tools are either available for free or for very very little. Go nuts, put it all on the cloud and fire it up and down as necessary. You can do this all for free or close to using a combination of AWS, bitnami etc

From a hiring management pov having a grad with a demonstrable understanding that software development is not just about "writing code" is worth a lot of value.

More generally, and back to your initial post. I would go for a junior development position rather than a jnr test position (unless it was test automation). It is potentially easier to go from Dev to Test.

Final thought, I have met plenty of exceptional testers who cannot code. System and acceptance testers need to understand the end users and the environment in which the systems shall be used.

I have never met an exceptional coder that cannot test. Great coders understand that testing and quality is their own responsibility, not something to be delegated to another group. Great coders always endeavor to break their own code...


Best of luck with whatever you do

Cen taurus

Irishgrover, thank you for that exceptional post and taking the time to help.
That's exactly the type of advice I was looking for.

Due to personal circumstances- I'm into playing it reasonably safe when it comes to my career.

The dilemma I'm in is :

Development
Pros :
- I Like it, and from what I've done so far, I prefer it to testing
Cons:
- No companies in my immediate area are taking on entry level developers at the moment, and as I have an elderly relative to care for, I'd like to stay local.
- I'm good at development, and what I do, I do very well, but I'm not one of the fastest at it in my class. The fast guys in my class make a ton of mistakes, and have to keep going back again and again to re-do it, but I generally don't make many mistakes and end up getting finished overall before them and with a better quality project, but they still look like they finish first all the time ? I might be wrong but some managers might overlook the fact I'm doing it well, and prefer the people that only appear to be doing it well, but are fast ?

Testing
Cons :
From what I've seen so far I don't like it as much as development, and I'm not big into documentation testing / writing, but I'll do it if I have to.
Pros :
- There is large software house, into financial services, near where I live, and they are taking on graduates as testers, and I'm pretty sure they do automated as well as manual testing. It has safe sensible career, with good experience, written all over it.
- As everyone in our class (and other courses I've spoken to) wants to get into development, rather than follow the herd, I'm thinking there might be a career to be had in testing for someone who also has development skills for test tools etc.
- I won't have to give up development completely, it just means I have to do it in my own time, in fact I might have more energy to development my own projects in my own time, if I'm not doing development all day at work as well.

What I might do is when I'm applying to the local company for a position, I might say that my preference is for development if they have anything in that line, but I'm happy to go down the testing route if needs be. (But that carried the risk of not sounding full on committed to testing, so I might not risk that secure local job by saying that either - what do folks think ?)

It might come down to a coin toss at the end of the day, but at least if it does, I know I tried my best to weigh up the pro's and cons and get other peoples advice.

If anyone has any more advice I'd be grateful, and I'm sure the general advice on this thread will be of great use to others as well, and not just me.

Mr. Loverman

You could become an automation engineer. It's development within the testing team. And it lets you avoid all the politics and fighting and frustration that happens when you become a senior tester / manager. I did automation for a few years. You're left alone, the money is good, and hardly anyone knows how to do it so you can walk into jobs.

Cen taurus

Mr. Loverman wrote: »

You could become an automation engineer. It's development within the testing team.

Now that, I would be really intrested in, and it would really suit my situation.

Whats the career path/plan/timescale for a graduate looking to get into that ?