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
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!)
7 years in a bank, Summer student (3mths) > Customer Service Assistant (4yrs) > Analyst (3yrs)( Included finishing my BSc & going part time for a Postgrad in IT while a CSA)
11 years Financial Services/Government, System Tester > Senior System tester
2 years Public Services Broadcaster , Senior Tester.
13 Years in Banking - 4 Years in Call Centre, 5 Years as Advisor, 4 Years as a Manager
18 Months with Banking company as UAT Tester
1 Year as Tester with Company 1
1 Year and counting as Tester/Automation Tester with Company 2
I have a degree in Games Design, which helped me land my first job as a tester after graduating. I have since left the games industry and will never return.
2 Years “QA Engineer” (wildly inaccurate job title, I was a games tester) at a small game studio, part of a team of 5
2 Years as a “QA Manager” in the same company, managing the same team, and 1 of those was also spent doing game design/content creation for the company’s newsletter
2 Years as a “Web Tester” for an agency, singular tester
1.5 years “Test Analyst” for another web agency, doing Principal Tester stuff but being paid mid-weight salary
Currently at 6 months as “Software Tester” for an in-house company, setting up testing in a company that has never had any official testing
I’ve been underpaid and under-utilised my entire career, and only now am I fighting for more as I’ve gained the courage to ask for what I’m worth.
I started with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
3 years in a product research & development the heavy construction industry
11 years in new product development/3 years in product testing and verification in the medical instrument industry (earned an MBA and learned how to develop software during this time)
8 years in IT as a developer/12 years as a Test Engineer/1 month as a Data Analyst in the insurance industry
4 months as a field geologists, ended when a hurricane wiped out the company’s equipment
1 year trying to get work
1 year taking a teaching certificate
6 months trying to get work as a teacher
1 year working as a teacher, ended with a nervous breakdown (got to love abusive employers)
5 years recovering, trying to find other work, etc.
3 years taking the software engineering degree
Another 6 months trying to get work, with a few short term gigs scattered through
6 months as a junior developer, ended when the company went bankrupt
8 months contract work as a junior developer, ended when I moved to the USA
18 months trying to find work
6 months work as a developer/tester/network admin/anything else the tiny company could get me to do. Ended with the combination of another breakdown (yay abusive employers) and a better job in another state.
7.5 years as a tester for a company that did admissions and ticketing management for anything that charges admission. Ended when they had a bad year and laid off a bunch of people. Job title went from QA 2 to QA 3
4 months looking for work
7.5 years as a tester for a company that reinvented itself multiple times while I was there:
1 year as a small payroll management company (I was the one and only tester)
5 years as medium sized payroll management + online payments company (I was the only tester in the payroll side)
the last 1.5 years and continuing after being bought by a megacorporation so now it’s a (by comparison) teeny-tiny payroll division in a massive payments/ATM company. And I’m still the only tester in the payroll group.
There is a reason I joke about having the Midas touch in reverse when it comes to careers. The last two jobs, I’ve breathed a sigh of relief when the 1 year mark passed without issues, and only started to relax a bit after 2 years.
My career in tech has been a bit short so far, but hopefully will be a long one, unless I get bored and decide to do something else xD I do miss jobs with physical activities like digging ditches, gardening, crafting, cooking though.
A million summers working in cafes/pubs/restaurants
One summer creating and teaching a university-level ‘taster’ physical geography course
2 years as an Iron Age warrior in a hill fort, teaching kids how to grind flour, bake bread, be warriors, make wattle&daub walls, weave baskets, make string/rope out of nettles etc etc
6 months carer in children’s care homes, until I got assaulted by another staff member
9 months juggling multiple 0h jobs at once: running children’s science workshops/parties; hotel breakfast assistant; overnight shifts at a fuel station; agency jobs
Career = an occupation undertaken for a significant period of a person’s life and with opportunities for progress.
I will refer to my IT career.
3 years Home Computer programming classes
4 years High School Computer programming and Mathematics/Physics classes
3 years University Computer Science
2 years University Masters Software Systems Engineering
During University studies I also spent some of my free time doing some Product Analysis, Software Packaging Management internship, Beta Testing, Product Reviews, Bug and optimization hunting
3 years Software Testing Engineer for Cybersecurity and antivirus software;
3 years Software Tester for a b2b2c marketplace(after changing the country);
6 months looking for a job after changing again the country;
3.5 years Software Testing Specialist(Consultant) - systems for private flights and tour/flight operators;
I was thinking about this the other day, when a friend on Facebook commented on people whose careers were branded a ‘failure’ by family and peers, but who turned out rather well in the end. So for me:
5 years weekend/holiday working in a library
3 years degree course in Librarianship
10 months actual work as a librarian on a multi-media collection cataloguing project
Seven months as a wages clerk in a furniture factory
30 years in the UK Civil Service:
Five years in a front-line social security office
Five years in a regional centre working on industrial injuries benefits (dealing with
medical reports, casework and appeals)
20 years working for the UK water industry economic regulator
Five years working direct to the CEO on research and Board support, mixed 50/50 with:
Working in the Press Office, on publications, press notices, responding to journalists, dealing with public enquiries, hosting high-level overseas visitors, organising press conferences and seminars.
15 years in Quality Assurance, which consisted of:
Two years working on data quality issues, working with external civil engineering consultants, which segued into:
Defining data collection requirements, then designing a data capture system on paper, and then testing it as it was translated into an IT application; managing the issue and return of the IT application, then acting as data wrangler and query manager for the rest of the year whilst the data return was picked over by analysts.
At the same time as the work for the water regulator, I also acted as senior Departmental-level trade union representative, handling negotiations, personal cases, liaising with peers in other Government departments and serving on national-level union management and advisory committees.
Two years out to write a book, win some photography awards, publish a number of
magazine articles.
Two years’ test contracting for five different companies (contracts ranging from 10 days to six months).
Two years as test analyst with company A, doing mainly traditional test scripting and
execution, but with elements of exploratory testing breaking in, plus a lot of work in year 2 on requirements gathering.
Four years (to date) with company B, doing increasingly much more modern exploratory testing.
My non-linkedin jobs included:-
Bar staff, worked in a music shop, frozen fish factory worker (a rite of passage if you want to get out of Grimsby!), dinner lady, various admin jobs and a few summers at the Crown Prosecution Service.
I’ve done nothing but testing since 2008.
Company 1 - 6 years as tester / test lead / test manager at a consultancy mostly for enormous FX and Commodities clients
Company 2 - 4 years contracting as a test lead for a financial organisation, IoT crowdfunded startup (which was bought out 1 month after I started) and a company that did training courses
Company 3 - 2 years as senior test lead at a safety tech company.
2 years as a Helpdesk support engineer.
1 year as a tier II/ III technical support engineer.
3 months as a qa tester learning how to test
1 year as a jr QA engineer with Samsung
2 years - 1 year as a QA engineer and 1 year as a senior QA engineer / release coordinator at 1stdibs
2 years as a lead QA engineer / Release Manager for Workframe
@heather_reid - Nice post. I wish there was a follow up - What was the turning point in your QA career ? What helped you to make the turning point ? (ex. MOT membership , Inspiring friend, Mentor, Programming classes etc.). Of course, without getting into personal details.
I’ve had a few ups and downs. I don’t think many would have moved from Director to admin assistant
Farm assistant (age 12)
Milk and Paper rounds
Cellar-boy (age 13 after cricket)
Chrome plating operator
Warehouse operative
Warehouse manager
Driver (up to 18 tonnes)
Despatch supervisor
Logistics manager
Internal Auditor
QHSE Director (Quality, Health and Safety and Environment under BS9000-2000)
Admin assistant
Team Leader
Software Tester (so it begins)
Test Lead
Site Lead Tester
Quality Assurance Lead
Audit Support Manager
Senior Tester and Accessibility Advocate (missed testing too much)
Test Engineer and Accessibility Advocate / SME (current role)
For clarity, each title was a different role, many within the same company.
, Inspiring friend, Mentor, Programming classes etc.). Of course, without getting into personal details.