The pros and cons of working under a Software Engineering manager VS a QA manager?

[nsegal (Nitin Segal)]

An excellent reply from personal experience by @ckenst

Where did all the Test managers go?

I’ve been thinking about your questions in terms of my career progression and it’s worked like this: My first job I worked for a big insurance company. I reported to a QA Manager and I think that position went all the way to VP. I don’t ever recall seeing a career ladder but I know people held higher positions. Second job was for a bank. I reported to a QA Manager and I know there were Directors and VPs of QA. My first startup I reported to the VP of Professional Services because the CTO thou…

@ckenst

The vast majority of my career I’ve been in your position: not getting a ton of useful feedback on how to develop my testing skills. No disrespect to my early test managers but I didn’t learn much about testing from them.

This has been my experience too. I did get a little bit from my QA manager initially because I was new, but was mostly self taught. Honestly, I think I have lagged far behind due to a lack of mentoring and coaching for the most part of my career.

ckenst:

I’ve learned a ton by being alone and having good CTO / Dev Managers who have challenged me. Which I guess goes to show that what I’ve really needed are places that are challenging and supportive to grow the most.

I haven’t got such support in my career. I am not wasting my time hoping or finding it now. I searched hard and tried lots of stuff, but nothing worked out. I took care of myself the best I could.

Now I am thinking of switching to a Developer role eventually. They have way more books, courses and mentoring resources than QA. Of course, I’d bet that most Devs don’t get access to mentors either (I suspect that mentoring is an anathema at most companies), but it feels like the might have a better chance than a QA. Besides most Devs are going to end up doing QA anyway. So if you really love QA, then it might be good to become a Dev.