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Old 08-23-2013, 08:40 PM
 
104 posts, read 133,664 times
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I came across this job title and some of the descriptions, interest me. Does it require proficient programming or basic knowledge would suffice? Any common languages/applications that are used in software testing? What skills are required for this king of position?
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Old 08-23-2013, 08:41 PM
 
213 posts, read 502,910 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kharken View Post
What skills are required for this king of position?
Uhhh aren't they listed?
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Old 08-23-2013, 08:49 PM
 
104 posts, read 133,664 times
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I mean, what general skills does a software tester need to have. Like, proficiency in programming and the like. I've been reading terms like agile, waterfall, automation, selenium, SDLC, SQL. One is different from the others. It's like being a software tester requires you to learn all applications.
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Old 08-23-2013, 08:52 PM
 
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Lots of info on the web on this. There are generally software tools for testing, so most companies would like to see experience in what they use. Software testers are generally perceived in IT to be kind of the bottom of the barrel, although software testing is a very important part of the development cycle. It's a great entry point into IT for someone that might not have a lot of experience and should lead to developing other useful skills that can boost your personal development and salary.
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Old 08-23-2013, 08:54 PM
 
104 posts, read 133,664 times
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Originally Posted by caspian65 View Post
Lots of info on the web on this. There are generally software tools for testing, so most companies would like to see experience in what they use. Software testers are generally perceived in IT to be kind of the bottom of the barrel, although software testing is a very important part of the development cycle. It's a great entry point into IT for someone that might not have a lot of experience and should lead to developing other useful skills that can boost your personal development and salary.
so does it mean it's better to have a career in software engineering/development/programming rather than in testing? Can't software testing be a long time career?
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Old 08-23-2013, 10:51 PM
 
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We have so called QA experts at 150/hr but i dont think its easy to find and theyre more like experimental stages. I think they should double as BAs to be effective.
Testers in generals normally use excel, sql and file comparison tools. I think theyre quite useless and ineffective unless they themselves understand how to find bugs. Most places get rid of testers when the economy or business is down. Its a good way to get in the game tho
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Old 08-23-2013, 11:01 PM
 
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It's generally better-paying to have a career in software engineering but in my experience good testers have an entirely different mindset than good programmers so do what you enjoy more. Requirements for testers are all over the board but the general requirements for testers include experience with a testing suite, experience writing test cases, maybe some experience with automation software, and maybe enough programming knowledge to help the engineers write and run automated unit tests. As part of an interview you can expect to be asked about these things and you can probably also expect to write test cases for a given scenario. If you're applying for a job in an agile shop (or one of the many shops that think having a daily stand-up automatically makes them agile), you should know about the basics of agile software development, especially how it contrasts with waterfall development. I know our testers were once expected to be proficient with SQL but that requirement has relaxed a bit as we have moved to using a mix of SQL Server and MongoDB for our projects.
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Old 08-24-2013, 10:43 AM
 
Location: League City
3,842 posts, read 8,237,729 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kharken View Post
I came across this job title and some of the descriptions, interest me. Does it require proficient programming or basic knowledge would suffice? Any common languages/applications that are used in software testing? What skills are required for this king of position?
It depends on the job. Some will have all kinds of skill requirements, and others not so much. At my last job the testers kind of made up stuff and didn't follow any industry standard. One of the lead testers didn't program and had a liberal arts degree. They were among the first to go when hard times fall, too, leaving developers to pick up the slack. That sucked. To me testing is boring, but not only necessary but critical. A good tester with well rounded knowledge can become invaluable to a large company and immune to layoffs if you are a guru.
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Old 08-24-2013, 03:13 PM
 
Location: Alameda, CA
578 posts, read 1,291,353 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kharken View Post
I mean, what general skills does a software tester need to have. Like, proficiency in programming and the like. I've been reading terms like agile, waterfall, automation, selenium, SDLC, SQL. One is different from the others. It's like being a software tester requires you to learn all applications.
SDLC isn't a program, it's actually just an idea of testing. It's full name is software development life cycle:

Systems development life-cycle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waterfall is likely to also be on the same page as SDLC. It's another idea of software lifecycle.
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Old 08-24-2013, 05:03 PM
 
Location: Seattle
337 posts, read 493,250 times
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I'm in a technical field but testing is not one of them. I do, however, have a testing certificate from a local community college which i've never used. One thing that became apparent is that a lot of software companies like testers to have programming skills because they see it as a pathway to creating future developers. At Microsoft, for example, you won't get the testing job without knowing .NET, specifically C#. MS hires a lot of kids right out of college for these jobs, they definitely consider them entry-level positions. However it just depends on the company.

The other thing to consider is that knowing a language or a variety of languages gives you options. Some day you might tire of testing, a lot of people do, and want to be more of a developer. Knowing some languages will give you that option. I'd also recommend becoming familiar with SQL or databases in general, just gives you an edge.
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