Same, I like tester and accept whatever the company puts on me. I find that companies use the different terms so wildly differently that theyre often not comparible, or theyāre trying to displace testing experts with some flavour mix with coding or operations which I consider to also be a tester (or fake testing with a brand name). As a tester I did teaching, worked with ops, worked on automatic check tools, and stayed a tester throughout. I think that if I specialised I could also be a auto quality engineer werewolf or whatever but Iād also have to be a tester. Or a liar. So Iād say fancier terms point to specialisations within testing but I have an expectation they are testers.
1 Like
There are some who argue, Tester is itself a sub-discipline of the wider Software Development name space.
I find this interesting, because there is factually a lot of overlap in good Testing and good Software Development, and the people who do these things.
Does this mean all Expert Tester are Software Developers? In my experience, absolutely not. I know great people in the field of software testing and quality who would not identify with, or even reject the Developer label, and for good reason. Some subset of Testers are Developers, if named in their job title or not.
The other way, are all Developers Testers? Again, not always. I do have strong evidence that developers can do very testing, and they can learn and develop expertise in testing. And I do mean exploratory testing and test analysis skills that are not powering automated tools.
Also, Iāve had great success bringing in non-traditional testers to join testing sessions, and they add huge value. Be they Medical Doctors, Data Scientists or Product Managers.
So, am I a Tester? Yes! Am I a Quality Engineer? No doubt. Am I a Developer? Some days I like to think so, and others Iām glad to shy away from that label and leave the code to someone else 
1 Like
Thatās an interesting set of conundrums on naming.
Of course Tester is a sub-discipline of Software Development in any reasonable namespace only if itās a software tester, not a hardware tester or ice cream tester.
I wouldnāt tell people Iām a Developer, because itās confusing, but I donāt love the term because I am part of the development of the software and it feels exclusionary to give that title to one person and not another - makes me feel like an afterthought. To the degree that Developer means ācode designer/writerā I do that too, in terms of scripts and tools like folder alerts, database diffing tools and so on. Developer as in ācode designer/writer for code that makes up the projectā, no Iām not one of those, and I think it would be a conflict of interests and devalue what I do for them.
Testing can seem like a weird profession to non-experts, because looking for problems is something that every human being does all day and night, even as they sleep; so who isnāt a tester? It can be tricky to box it in if we donāt have a solid definition for ourselves. Anyone can perform exploratory testing, for sure, and they do, but a good tester does it faster, more reliably, more accurately, cheaper, with excellent reporting and documentation, solves test project problems effectively, builds better strategies, work from a mindset of investigation, are separated from the pride of building something, arenāt biased by the ācertaintyā of code, think very deeply about risk and threats and so on. So while anyone can explore (and that is what I teach to new testers), not everyone can explore expertly from an expert position. A test is so often considered like itās a thing, not an event - something that we write or count, instead of an instance of something we do - and that thinking ignores the skill of testing, and the energy, motivation, focus and attention that tester brings.
So yes, anyone can test anything, but not everyone can test something excellently. This is also why I think that poor testing is the biggest threat to the testing industry, because poor testers can test (like any other people) but they cannot test excellently, and act as advertisements for the replacement, formalisation and minimisation of testers of all kinds.
Itās rare that we see this in any other profession. Anyone can play football, so whatās so great about Messi? Well, we can see the results of his work much easier than all the work that happens in the mind of a tester. We donāt have a world of professional football saturated with amateurs. Crowds understand what good football looks like. We donāt have football teams headed by people who donāt know how football works. Generally.
So Iām all of the labels and none of them, depending on who Iām talking to and what Iām saying and what each of us mean. But if youāre going to ask me what I do - what I love, what I teach, what I write about and what I strive to be really good at, thatās testing.
1 Like