# 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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![jesper](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/club.ministryoftesting.com/jesper/32/8341_2.png) [@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")

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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…

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_[View the full topic](https://club.ministryoftesting.com/t/testers-career-path/62424)._