Iāve been in QA for 15 years, currently holding the title of Senior Quality Engineer. I started as an intern and stuck with the same company. While Iāve dabbled in Cypress and RubyMine, itās not my expertise. Manual testing( acceptance, exploratory tests) are my strengths, and I enjoy them thoroughly. Despite not being outspoken, I maintain good relationships with my colleagues, and they appreciate my work.
I excel in multitasking and providing support to multiple teams simultaneously (due to lack of enough QA ) Iām at a career crossroads that aligns with my personality. Iām steering away from automation testing, which is now handled by development teams under my guidance. I provide scenarios and advice to make their tests efficient. I always think about introducing tools to the team that can benefit and enhance our overall performance.
Iām unsure about my next move and feeling a bit stuck. Our QA team is small, and I lack peers to discuss career growth. Any suggestions or insights would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Iāve been speaking to people about their career progression in testing and have also written a blog post about it to help people. My main advice is that as a testing professional, to progress your career itās not about becoming an automator or a project manager but instead looking at your influence.
At a junior level, a tester can influence their own work.
A mid level tester will influence the work of their peers and other testers.
A senior tester should be influencing a project.
To progress, we need to start looking at ways to influence larger spheres. How can you influence a domain, company or programme of work? That could be things like: creating approaches and strategies, training the organisation on testing concepts, running proof of concepts for new tools and techniques and being vocal to push scope and risks up to the business.
As a fellow exploratory tester, what Iād found starts to give me greater influence is looking at how to push information up to help decision making. how can I benchmark or explore the risks of something and share that into the organisation to set scope of testing and aid understanding of quality?
On a more practical level, some organisations donāt have a testing career path beyond senior tester. Youād have to think about whether you wanted to become a manager (and take on line management of testers), or whether youād want to move companies. If itās the latter then I recommend showing that you have a greater sphere of influence through blogging and making posts for the community.
Perhaps you could become the first principal or Staff-level tester in your company? - or someone who leads testing activities in larger scope than just the day-2-day grind? The staff-level testers with an even larger span of is inspired from the following:
Hi Rasa tester!
I would also consider thinking about what in your day-to-day job energizes you and makes you want to show up to work. Do you like working with people as more of a manager track or more of an individual contributor path? Is there a way you can create a new path in your current org within testing? It sounds like some of what you do is quality advocate work so if a need exists, perhaps you can build that path out. Are there jobs you see others do in your org that interest you? Perhaps you can shadow them for some portion of your week.
Thanks for your comment @oconis
Iād like to work more on the Individual contributor path. Yes, you are right; Iām more on the quality advocate path now. I used to feel content when I did things on my own. It doesnāt come with this managerial work. And somebody must recognize and appreciate the work I do, as I cannot see it by myselfā¦And I guess i should change this mindsetā¦
Let me write my personal situation and if you wish, do not hesitate to make me any advise.
I started as a manual tester before 20 years for 1.5 year. Afterwards i become web developer step-by-step. For more than the laste year iām trying to find a job in QA after having gaining a related certification into the QA area. Therefore iām supposed to start at junior/entry position but in most of the cases during the job search, companies require at least 1+ or 2+ years of experience. What iām doing is to try to make my own QA projects and upload them on GitHub.
Thank you for your time to read my story.
Georgios G.
I feel the same about just being content with doing things on my own.
Itās more difficult trying to influence the team towards quality because you might not have the necessary authority to do, or some people are not inclined to try new things, or there is just no time, etc. I also donāt want to go to a team and dictate we have to do this and that. All I can do is really add suggestions on things to try, etc.
I think the transition from senior QA to quality coach/advocate is very hard because there is no one size fits all approach since there is a lot that depends on the organization, the team, the people and on the QA as well.
What excites you each day to go to work? That can be a really hard question to answer.
if itās nothing, then what you may need is just a job at a new company. Testing something completely different. After recently changing jobs after 13+ years at a company, I find myself enjoying going to work.
@kevin_k Thanks for your message . Iām not bored with my work at all; there are numerous exciting projects to be a part of. However, Iām interested in exploring new horizons beyond the usual tasks i do, such as doing acceptance tests, monitoring user journey tests or troubleshooting test failures etc. Simply switching jobs wouldnāt bring much change if I end up doing the same tasks.
What aspects of your new job make it interesting to you? How does it differ from your previous role?
@cakehurstryan Your blog post has been incredibly helpful! I explored various testing-related topics in your blog and found it highly recommendable. Thank you for sharing!
Lots of good advice from others here so just a few things from meā¦
A good starting point might be to list out the parts of your role you like and dislike, what motivates you, and whether you want to go down a people manager role, or stay as an individual contributor. You then start to think of whether you want to specialise in certain test areas (ie accessibility which was mentioned by avenger12) or do something else, as career progression isnt always upwards, it can be sideways as well.
There are so many options within testing, but as you know you dont want to focus on automation, and if management isnt for you, then other options may be Product Manager or Business Analyst roles where you get closer to the product.
Opportunities may exist where you are, and I donāt know what your feelings are about leaving the company or whether you would rather stay. No-one can tell you what is best, thats your decision as you know the setup better than anyone else. Maybe you could take on some extra responsibilities as its a smaller team - itās worth a chat with your line manager to see if that could work for you.
You made the decision to own your own career progression, so whatever you decide to do, good luck!
@rasa234 sounds like youāve already decided to move away from QA as a career - but I wonder without making too many assumptions about you personally, in your case would āchange be as good as a restā - youāve been committed to the same company, for a long time (absolutely commendable, by the way) - but youāve also been on the same tech stackā¦ so I wonder are you getting stimulated by your testing work anymore? Now youāre looking beyond testing when in fact, your wealth and years of knowledge might be just what another business needs in their QA team.
Depending on your location, my advice would be to have a look at what test specific meetups there are going on- get to know what companies are around, who are hiring, whoās doing something interesting, exciting, new. Here youāll also be exposed to other testers, and you can gauge if the business you work for is doing testing well, or are they behind the curve or maybe theyāre way ahead of the gameā¦
It sounds like you need pushing out your 15 year comfort zone. Time to put yourself out there!
