Which tester are you? Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with many individuals, particularly test engineers and test managers. I’ve observed significant differences between them and I want to collect some thoughts in this post.
I came up with 3 main groups:
- I am not a tester by profession but I was assigned testing duties out of necessity.
- I am a test engineer who don’t fully appreciate the complexity of my role.
- I am an enthusiastic test engineer who enjoy finding and breaking flaws in the software/system.
I am testing but I don’t want to!
I’ve encountered this situation frequently in my career. The project runs on a limited budget and the priority is to get the developers. This leads to challenges such as the absence of a test manager to initiate timely planning and an insufficient number of testers.
What is the solution then? Ask a couple of software engineers to test their software. That has many cons, and I will list the most important ones:
- A software developer, who has an in-depth understanding of the software, should avoid testing it.
- Software developers typically prefer not to take on testing roles. Their primary responsibility is to fix bugs rather than demonstrate that the quality of the software they helped create can be improved.
- The tester mindset (and experience) is missing. Software developers assume the software works based on their understanding and they might miss some corner cases, and bugs.
I am testing, but I find it easy
Let’s assume the budget for our project is not that limited, meaning we can actually hire some test engineers. However, we are on a tight schedule and we don’t have so much time to look for experienced testers.
The solution is to hire Junior test engineers, or just engineers that have not so much proven experience. For instance, people who have recently transitioned into testing after previously handling different roles, or test engineers who, after several years, decide they no longer wish to continue in testing, might find their motivation and job performance decreasing.
Even in this scenario, the risk of our software quality stays high. Let’s see how, in few important points:
- A test engineer lacking skills or motivation might only run test cases and re-test bugs, which is the least effective method for discovering new bugs.
- No experience based testing will be executed, or exploratory testing, which are the best way to find bugs.
I am testing and I love it
There are some people, like myself, that are passionate about testing. They really put creativity into testing, meaning that running test case specifications is, in the end, just 10% of the entire job.
The main advantages to have test engineers that fall in this category, are:
- They have testing mindset, meaning that they know where a bug can be found.
- They are willing to find new ways of testing, for instance, by exploring new hardware/software for automation.
- They can undertand how a software works and where it can be weak.
So, which tester are you?