This blog post is inspired by (With few addition by me) this post.. Thanks to the author ..
http://geektester.blogspot.com/2009/10/do-you-have-it-in-you-technical-skills.html
Somebody Said, QA/testing job is less innovative and inferior, they get less Salary (Mostly wrong statement) and they can't code (Well, they can but they won't)..
I believe QA engineer should be able to code, But may not code ..
Lets see what Development engineer innovates while He Codes .. U see Business Analysts Says "What is Business requirement for customer", Product manager says "What all features will be developed" and Architects Says "How to modularize the product development".. and once Dev Engr knows, what specific has to be done (Like Validate the username/pwd taken from login page), he translates his modules functional description written in English language to another language say C/C++/Java ..
So I don't think there is much scope of innovation to Dev Engr as well .. One may say, Dev Engr has more chances to become Architect, Similarly testers have more chance to become Business Analyst and Consultant, As they have Bird's Eye View and Domain understanding and more closeness to Customers..
You Testers (Including me), Beware, You Must and Must understand Technical things (Architecture of the product, Module flow diagram, Languages used, Debugging skills, Middleware and backend understanding) and at least one General purpose language and one Scripting language, and the best bet would be C++ and Perl .. Also, Good understanding of Internals of RDBMS is required... Become the Domain expertise .. and Learn Testing Tools and Automation ..
I believe, whatever I said above is not very difficult to achieve.. We can do it, If we focus ... But, If you want to just learn Record/Play Tools, which any 10th Pass student can do, Forget about Job security and Bright career in Testing .. Life is gonna be tough .. In Past few years, many Testing jobs is moved to India (Main reason being Low Cost labor) and If we do not focus, Jobs may move to Nepal, Bhutaan, Srilanka, China, South Africa etc.. (For the Same reason, of curse)
One May Ask, Developer can only test, He knows, In and out of the product, so he can better Test..So Why testers are required..? Well, Ask to IT industry experts and they will say u something like "Separation of Duties" and "Conflict of Interest" .. Its like, if A Doctor has Medical shop also, he will/may prescribe only those medicine, which He has in his medical store right now, Even when there may be better medicine for the same Disease.. Or If an enterprise makes the Financial Auditor and Accountant the same person (See what happens..)
I was always topper in my Engineering College (BE/2005/ECE), I had received 2nd Prize in C++ South India Competition conducted by NIIT and had designed Mail-Client/Server in just a week using java servlet, JSP, Oracle, and J2EE as part of NIIT Course for J2EE after I finished B.E. Initially, Even I wanted to become Dev. Engr, But, I am here since 4.1 Yrs.. Its like, No profession is Bad, and every profession has some Pros and Cons .. Lets highlight Positive things and Be Happy ..
I am quite happy now with my career...
No Offense to anyone.. I just felt, Lots of negative talk about Testing is floating around, and why not encourage Testers.. Happy testing .. :)
