How do you know you like or hate your QA career?

Discussions
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By QA career I mean being any kind of QA or SDET in any company. Essentially, I am asking you if you enjoy being a QA or want to switch careers to something else like Dev, Pilot, Plumber etc.

How do you know you like or hate your QA career? What are the top 5 signs for you ?

I think I hate being a QA because of the following reasons -

1 - I’d quit QA instantly if I got a huge sum of money (like a few million USD).

I think this is the biggest sign regardless of whether you are a QA. I’d probably try to be a chef or something else.

2 - Some of my peers are way better than me at getting things done, which I noticed over many years.

There are always people better (or worse) than you, which does not necessarily mean you are a bad QA. But I don’t see how I can catch up to such peers or even get better than them. I have worked hard, but plateaued on what I can realistically achieve in my QA career (I am not talking about any particular job or company). I don’t think anyone would want to mentor me at this stage even if I wanted to stay in this career.

3 - I just don’t feel excited or curious about testing.

I never really felt excited much about QA. I recently tried (actually forced) myself to see some books, articles, and videos by pro testers like James Bach in the hopes of triggering a spark or renewing my interest in QA. It was sometimes slightly fun, but it did not inspire me. I wonder if I am just lacking inspiration or do I have no business in being a QA. OTOH, I feel excited about being a chef and trying stuff. I don’t need to force myself to learn. I also know its not an easy life (You have to work late and even on holidays. There is no work from home lol.).

Every time I sit to prepare for QA interviews or just learn, I get distracted easily and end up doing something else like making this post right here. Not so much when I am cooking and experimenting in the kitchen.

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We’re in the same boat mate.

I have this feeling that there must be a next stage from what im currently doing right now. Can’t keep testing the same basic stuff for the rest of my life. One thing I did do was take initiatives at work to improve the team’s overall quality of work which makes my life easier.

What has kept me alive is shifting to a context driven approach. Which means I formulate my own standards and measures based on the uniqueness of the situation. If its repetitive, I’ll start working on automating it so I don’t have to do it again and again.

This partial laziness in me keeps thing fun because I get to try out new stuff.

Switch to chef? I do like cooking a lot and do have a dream of owning a cafe one day :sweat_smile: I also spend my time thinking about food, new recipes, new combos, perfecting a certain recipe or technique. I hate following a boring procedure, but when it comes to cooking, I may give it a chance.

But on a serious note, many tech people say the same thing. i.e. shifting to a non-screen job if given the chance. So yes, you’re not alone in this. In the end we must all do what we love to do with a passion.

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Peers seemingly having a better grip at the skill than one’s self?

I totally relate to that FOMO but one thing that you must understand is, this industry is half skill and half yapping. Yes, there’s highly skilled people too but a lot of the “experts” I know have the same skill set as me but better yapping capabilities. This allows them to sell themselves to the right buyer and establish the supposed “worth”