# Testers career path
**URL:** https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424
**Category:** Discussions
**Tags:** career-development, new-to-testing
**Created:** [21 September 2022 14:23 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424 "2022-09-21T14:23:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@roger89](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/roger89)
#### Post date: [21 September 2022 14:23 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/1 "2022-09-21T14:23:17Z")
Hello dears, what is the best career path for a tester? from lowest to highest level.
---
### Author:  [@kristof](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/kristof)
#### Post date: [21 September 2022 14:31 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/2 "2022-09-21T14:31:14Z")
There is not really a lowest or highest.
Automation doesn’t mean it’s better then manual or test management.
You can be an insane manual tester which out scales a test manager easily.
---
### Author:  [@roger89](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/roger89)
#### Post date: [21 September 2022 15:03 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/3 "2022-09-21T15:03:35Z")
you are right but as a standard what is the structure of the testing department? what is the career path for a tester?
---
### Author:  [@davidshute](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/davidshute)
#### Post date: [21 September 2022 15:14 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/4 "2022-09-21T15:14:31Z")
Depends on the tester and the companies that tester is a part of. My own path was pretty linear in that I started as a tester, moved to lead tester, dabbled in some automation, became a test team lead, and them moved into test team manager. That went a little sideways when I moved into my current role as a cross functional team manager, supporting a development unit of testers and devs rather than just testers.
I’ve known testers that have gone into project management, sales, development, automation, security, and management.
The role is open enough that you define what your ideal path would look like. Then it’s just a matter of finding the companies and managers that will support you along that path. If you can’t find them, then you look for peers and mentors to fill in the gaps. Best is subjective.
---
### Author:  [@jesper](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/jesper)
#### Post date: [22 September 2022 08:23 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/5 "2022-09-22T08:23:11Z")
Hi @roger89,
I would recommend differentiating the role and the level. A level could go: Junior \> Advanced \> Senior \> Staff. Roles could be: Tester, Automation Engineer, Lead, etc. So you can have a Senior Tester as well as a junior lead. These are all individual contributors - without hire/fire and staff responsibilities. That would be a separate role: the management track. To design a test department, I would recommend looking into [Team Topologies](https://teamtopologies.com/).
Here are some links for you:
[https://www.ministryoftesting.com/dojo/series/testbash-careers-2022?s\_id=13489763](https://www.ministryoftesting.com/dojo/series/testbash-careers-2022?s_id=13489763)
> **[Ninja training for software testers](https://www.ministryoftesting.com/search?q=what%2Bis%2Ba%2Bprincipal%2Btester%2Bjitesh%2Bgosai)**
>
> Join the Ministry of Testing community - a great place to learn all things testing, connect with others interested in software quality, and contribute to the advancement of the software testing craft!
> [@What Does Your Career Timeline Look Like?](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/what-does-your-career-timeline-look-like/42388):
>
> It took me a while to find a career fit that worked for me. I’ve often talked about how I haven’t climbed the career ladder, I’ve jumped from one ladder to the next grin To the question then in the title, my career timeline looks like this: 1 year and 1 day as a mathematical planner, about 6 of which involved software development (the 1 day bit is very important, it reduced the amount of training fees I’d to pay back because I was more than a year with the company!) 1 year 4 months as a dev…
---
### Author:  [@oxygenaddict](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/oxygenaddict)
#### Post date: [30 September 2022 13:14 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/6 "2022-09-30T13:14:41Z")
Personally I think there’s multiple paths that you can take.
- People: Management or coaching where you are there to make the people excel at delivering on quality.
- Automation: If you like coding but don’t like being a developer, consider automation. You can become a senior and lead in this field.
- Security: Probably my current path. I love hands on manual testing and this seems the next step.
- Manual testing: Where I’ve been for most my time in testing. Exploratory testing seems to be getting more notice in job specs from what I’ve seen, although whether there’s huge progression for someone who’s skill is in this area, IDK.
I also think that testers can potentially move into development but favour picking up testing of stories. There’s a lot of organisations that don’t have embedded QA yet still require quality testing as work is being developed. T-shaped engineers is a term I’ve heard used for this.
---
### Author:  [@vikashcr7](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/u/vikashcr7)
#### Post date: [31 January 2023 16:47 UTC](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424/7 "2023-01-31T16:47:17Z")
Hi @roger89 ,
From my point of view from the lowest to high-level career path for a Tester. I mentioned some below skill sets please go through it:-
1. Manual Testing(SDLC,Types of Testing(Functional,Non Functional), Test Document Techniques,STLC, Defect Management Tool)
2.Any programming Language but I recommended you :-Java
2. Web Automation Testing Tool:- Selenium, TestNG(Unit Testing Tool), Cucumber
4.Build Management Tool:-Maven
3. Api Testing Tool:- Rest-Assured, Postman
4. Mobile Testing:- Appium
5. Performance Testing:- Jmeter
Thanks
@vikashcr7