I’d be interested in some feedback please on a change we are implementing.
I firmly believe in testers having good all round skills - technical, analytical and soft skills (in fact I’m doing a talk on this at TestExpo on 31st October), but am wondering whether something I want to implement is going to work as well as I hope.
We are looking at a new role in the team as a Software Developer in Test, and I have been conscious of the fact that a role with this title may lead to finding someone with all the right tech skills but none of the test skills that I need them to have. The problem is that I have manual testers in the team and we need to develop our automation framework to run smoke tests on build and overnight regression tests. The role supports the test function, but cannot just be a coding only role.
I discussed this within the management team, and we felt that rather than looking for a tester with coding skills, the gap could be filled by someone with more of a developer background. It does make a lot of sense, but I need someone who can define the tests, not just code what someone else has already told them to do.
Has anyone been on this journey? I’d be interested in your thoughts on this, and your experiences. Does it work in your team? Have you tried and found that it failed?
Thanks