Into management or different types of testing? Or something else?
Lets share your ideas and goals!
From LinkedIn comments…
Lee Marshall
Honestly, I’m feeling stuck and unsure how to progress. Automation offers no appeal. Accessibility and Security would be interesting as they would be novel, but sadly not possible in the area I’m doing. Management is not for me. I’d be interested in coaching and mentoring however, helping people become testers, as well as be better testers.
I’d be interested in coaching and mentoring however, helping people become testers, as well as be better testers.
Namida Aneskans:
Toward less testing per se and a bit more of other quality enhancing activities.
Luke Liu
T-shaped, lazy E shaped tester, then aim to become the testing specialist or expert who can add real value in delivering the quality solutions. In the process, maybe hands on, maybe management depends on whichever has bigger impact on a particular project. One thing I know I will keep my tester’s hat and mindset close, because I need them a lot …
Simon Long
I made the jump from functional testing to non-functional testing (in a leadership capacity) and having the same question to myself . I used to think of a testing career as very linear and hierarchal and also thought management and leadership was the only way to increase my testing skills but with age and experience I now feel confident enough to want to focus more on technical aspects of the testing craft - I aspire to combine test coaching and leadership but also look into developed my test analyst skills into API testing …phew I think that’s the first time I ever wrote that down !
Sreedhar Poladi
Personally I would love to work on all types of testing but as a manager with the experience that I gained I can add more value to my organization as well as the customers. But again, in my experience so far, no organisation is willing to think out of the box in utilizing true experience of the manager. All vertical heads and senior leadership team is just using the managers as just for coordinating the pre-sales activities, metrics collection, monitoring the project health, coordinating the performance management and then for client visits. No regrets to say I did not come across any Test Manager that could add value to the pre-sales activities, projects, customers, and the resources that reporting into him/her. They are not even truly justifying these basic things that a resource with 2 to 3 years of experience. There is a lot that the manager is expected to do: like assessing the gaps in the processes, methodology, skill-set of the resources, mentoring the junior resources from the technology perspective, strategic thinking, and building the next-level leadership within the organisation, etc. are a few. (edited)
Andrew Shaw
I see myself becoming a more rounded tester, gaining experience in different types of testing like Penetration Testing, Automated Testing, Load Testing and more. I see the role of being a tester constantly evolving which is great and I want to push myself as far as possible, and learn as much as I can. I also want to retain the different testing skills I have developed so far, in particular exploratory testing which I feel is really valuable skill to have, as well as a questioning and creative mindset.
Christopher Sterling
Hopefully at some point specialise in Accessibility Testing. Lots to learn before that though.
Marinette Melin
I miss to work as a manual tester. I’ll always believe that manual testing is also needed. love the exploratory out of the box thinking. Try everything you can think of! Not all of us want to necessarily become a leader. You can still grow and be satisfied in your manual test role in a team. I am trying to learn code and looking for educations and online courses. Combine automation and manual testing. There are different roles within testing and i think it’s important to remember that. People talk about how good it is to have different skills and background but in the end even though you have long experience “coding” seems to be something you have to know. Not all of us are doctors, and the reason? We are all different and something we should be proud of.
Kevin Smale
I love testing, but see myself progressing further into management and/or production. I was purely a tester for roughly four years before switching to being a Lead managing teams of testers and doing more TCC and reporting than testing. I think all managers should be in the game now and then though, it’s hard to talk about the work if you distance yourself too much.
Ganesh Padmanaban
As a perf consultant, wanted to progress in site reliability engineer role in future. “Full Stack Tester” for technology based on IoT, Blockchain, Cloud.
Eduardo G.
I’m up to model based testing to combine deep learning techniques and automation framework creation from scratch
Thomas Knee
Learning as much as I can and then passing on my knowledge to those that want to learn.
Moving into a team environment most likely as a senior/mentor. I’ve been a solo tester for 6.5 years now, and juggling everything is getting a bit old.
Of course to do that I’m going to need to pick up some leadership skills…
I’ve moved into management but very much interested in product/UX. May switch entirely in the future by retraining. I haven’t completely made my mind up yet
Hopefully, into a more technical role. I’d like to be proficient in automation testing with both Python and Java, and to conduct API testing. At the moment I have no desire to move into a management position, I don’t really think I would be suited for it.