What's one thing you wish you'd known before you started testing?

Career
#1

What’s one thing you wish you’d known before you started testing?

For me, I wish I’d known that it wasn’t going to be horrible :sweat_smile: I remember being so frustrated when it was decided that I should move from dev to testing thinking that it was some sort of a demotion. I now, of course, know that isn’t the case but I wish I’d known it then.

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#2

Years before I started testing, I would have wanted to know that testing was a viable career choice.

If I went back to my first testing job, I would want to know how powerful automated checks could be. We wasted an absurd amount of time retesting things which should have been automated.

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#3

(non-functional) Requirements :smiley:

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#4

So much this. I was late to the game, 37 years old, when I found out this was even an option. One of the reasons I went back to my old school to talk about it.

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#5

I wish i would’ve known the vast amount of opportunties a career in Testing would offer, I would’ve jumped sooner. It was definitely seen as a backwards step both from a skills and a pay perspective by everyone around me when i did jump, but so glad I did.

I also wish i’d known about the community at the start as I went a good 5 years thinking the way I was testing in my company was the only and best way to do it.

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#6

I wish I had known that Testing or being a Tester didn’t exclude me from reading and writing code.

I think I would of developed quicker if I hadn’t artificially held myself back from engaging with the code.

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#7

I wish I had known about the flexibility in testing. I often encourage testers to let go of their limits on what is possible to get at what they want to know about a product.

Also, I wish I had known how social testing is. The testing community was farther ahead of development communities in sharing and collaborating. Dang fine education for me!

Joe

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#8

A reputable, structured, introductory course on general principles of testing with lots of examples & problems.

PS - I never found any such course in colleges or online course platforms. It seems that to make a career in testing you view random courses/articles/books and/or hope to get a job where you’ll actually learn something useful.

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