New to java - Just curious about testing and QA

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

I have heard from people that testing and QA are the least-sought after jobs in the software industry, they tend to be "boring" for most and freshers avoid it as much as possible. Is this true ?
My friend (from non-CS background like me) is in testing and dislikes it.

please advise.
rb

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

That's a subjective question. I would answer "maybe." It depends on the person. Some people find testing interesting and some find it boring. It also depends on what kind of company it is. Some define testing as executing repetative scripts (which sounds boring to me.) Some define it as writing automated scripts, doing exploratory testing to try to break the software, learning the business, etc. None of which sound boring.

I'm going to move this thread to Job Discussion where I think it will get more discussion. The questions in the Testing forum tend to be more technical in nature.

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

Some things need clarification :

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
...try to break the software ...

As in reverse engineering ?

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
...learning the business...

What does this mean ?

eagerly waiting for a reply
rb.

[Campbell Ritchie]

I think you have not posted in the right place Moving discussion.

[Henry Wong]

Rahul Sudip Bose wrote:

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
...try to break the software ...

As in reverse engineering ?

No. Like in trying to break the software. QA's job is to find bugs -- ie. break the software.

Henry

[Henry Wong]

Rahul Sudip Bose wrote:

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:
...learning the business...

What does this mean ?

Bugs will get through. No QA department is perfect. So, how to mitigate the damage? One way is to model the tests closer to the business use cases -- this way, the ones that do get through will be uncommon in production.

Henry

[Henry Wong]

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:That's a subjective question. I would answer "maybe." It depends on the person. Some people find testing interesting and some find it boring. It also depends on what kind of company it is. Some define testing as executing repetative scripts (which sounds boring to me.) Some define it as writing automated scripts, doing exploratory testing to try to break the software, learning the business, etc. None of which sound boring.

My two cents. I think too many beginners think of QA as a backup to programming. I also think two many recruiters push it as well. I think this is wrong.

IMO, QA is a specific job with specific requirements -- the requirements shouldn't be "a fresher programmer who couldn't get a programming job". Also, the job is hard enough, why stock it with people who doesn't want to be there?

Henry

[Kr Manish]

Rahul Sudip Bose wrote:I have heard from people that testing and QA are the least-sought after jobs in the software industry, they tend to be "boring" for most and freshers avoid it as much as possible. Is this true ?
My friend (from non-CS background like me) is in testing and dislikes it.

please advise.
rb

You are very true to an extent, if its in Indian service based mnc's. That is Manual Testing . That indeed IS boring and does not provide much career boost as opposed to development. On the other hand in product companies you get to do better things in testing including load/performance testing, which is very good. Also Test Automation is good. So it depends.

Having said that, in testing you have good onsite opportunities , but that depends on the organization. e.g. there are many onsite opportunities in Support projects but is even more despised than testing.

Also, you can move up the ladder in testing too, albeit little slower.

[Misha Ver]

Henry Wong wrote:QA's job is to find bugs -- ie. break the software.

QA's job is to prevent bugs, while Tester's job is to find bugs. Although in many companies terms "Tester" and "QA" are used interchangeably.

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

saw a recent post which suggests that QA is boring :
https://coderanch.com/t/530690/Jobs/careers/Career-path-Tester-Developer

Mayu Mayooresan wrote:
...
I feel no passion towards QA job. Its all to do with Excel, I'm thinking of a change to Dev track. but in the other hand I'm 27 years old and if I change my track i'll spoil my 2 and half year of experience.
...

What is this Dev Track ? Is it just like preparing excel sheets or more fun and challenging ?

regards
rb.

[Jimmy Clark]

Testing software for bugs and processing faults and testing software for "quality" are not the same things. In some cases the names of these two activities are interpretted to be the same, but they are not.

A Quality Assurance group will most likely execute their quality-oriented tests after a Testing group has released the software. For example a QA group may examine an application to determine the level of User friendliness or the User experience. Or how organized the screen layouts are and if there are too many required button-clicks, or if is friendly for those with visibility impairments. The application can still have zero bugs and zero defects and still fail QA tests.

The main purpose of a Quality Assurance group is to "assure" that software adheres to a specifed level of "quality." Entry-level staff may start here, but the organization must have senior staff managing and controlling the QA activities for it to work effectively and efficiently.

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

I want to know what are all the possible jobs a test engineer could have to do ? Eg, like prepare excel sheets (as someone said) , find bugs etc.

[Jimmy Clark]

Creating comprehensive Test Strategies

Creating comprehensive Test Plans

Creating comprehensive Test Cases

Executing tests

Leading test efforts and teams

Writing programs to execute tests

Using software to execute tests

[Rahul Sudip Bose]

Jimmy Clark wrote:Creating comprehensive Test Strategies
....tests

Thanks for the informative response.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

Misha Ver wrote:

Henry Wong wrote:QA's job is to find bugs -- ie. break the software.

QA's job is to prevent bugs, while Tester's job is to find bugs. Although in many companies terms "Tester" and "QA" are used interchangeably.

I'd argue that QA's job is both to find and prevent bugs. Mainly because in in our industry, the QA team is usually responsible for both testing and QA.