I can’t code. Is my job/career as a software tester at risk?

I like Quality Investigation! Always wanted to be a PI so would love this title :smiley:
Quality Investigator, at your service! :sunglasses:

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Personally, I like coding, but I don’t get nearly enough opportunities to do it. So manual testing it is, most of the time.

That said, I figure a big part of manual testing is in the form of QA - as in Quality Advocate. If I have to have QA in my job title, that’s what I figure it means. It certainly doesn’t mean “Assurance” and “Analyst” is maybe okay but pushing it.

After all, if you’re going to advocate for quality, you need to know what’s going on in the application. You don’t find out what’s going on in the application without exploring it.

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No, clearly not.
Obviously, there are some tools you can use - if you can’t code - for example, Endtest (they even have a nifty Chrome extension that allows you to test Web Applications without writing a single line of code) - but that does not mean this kind of tool can replace the human critical thinking (and other unautomate-able skills) - which will forever be valuable.
The world is changing day by day and how you embrace it defines how you will adapt to those changes over time.

It’s always helpful to learn coding for automation, as today,
coding is ubiquitous. We, as testers, are and should be
willing to learn many things while testing, so why not
scripting/coding as one of them?

I am a big fan of manual testing, but I sincerely believe
that automation saves a lot of time and relieves us from
stress and fatigue, so if automation requires coding, why
not?

There are new-age automation test tools that don’t need
coding, but that’s a different story.

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It depends. If you are an exceptionally good tester, i.e. the kinds that can easily test new things or complex things in which bugs can grievously harm people (e.g in aircraft, medical devices, banking etc), and test them well, then maybe your career is not at risk. You can simply say no to coding and perhaps get away with it. But remember, there is an upside to learning coding. You can automate the boring parts of your job if that’s possible. Otherwise, you’ll have to beg others to do it and then waste time in explaining them the basics of what you want to automate.

Those who are not exceptional testers should learn coding because their competitors will certainly do so. Depending on where you live, remember that there will be testers in LCOL areas (Lower Cost of Living) areas who are as competent as you or even better, and are eager to learn coding. You love those genuine two things for one price deals, don’t you ? So, does your boss. Try thinking from their perspective too.

When developers become better at testing and dev testing becomes more common, the less you will be able to contribute to software quality. Devs are not necessarily bad testers or helpless & biased people who desperately need a tester to rescue them, as some testers would like to believe. FWIW, some devs gave me tips to find some good bugs which were probably impossible to find without deep knowledge of the product and code. If devs have the potential to become at least an “average” tester (not “exceptional”), then they already have an advantage over an average tester who refuses to code. Although it is uncommon, some devs switch to QA or SDET jobs. Such converted devs might also be able to fix bugs, at least the simple ones. What do you think unemployed devs might consider as an alternate job when the market is too bad, such as in times of a pandemic or a recession ? Who do you think your “two for one” loving boss might lean towards ?