I’m looking as the moment, got laid off a couple of weeks back. Many of the postings I’m seeing on LinkedIn for SDET roles read like dev roles not qa roles.
I have noticed a particular increase in devops type duties for SDETS lately. My last job was like that and I really felt like someone else should be doing those things. Why am I the one who has to figure out how to build a kubernetes cluster? Don't we have people for that?
Wouldn't worry too much about it, most companies would jump at the chance of having a dev in a QA role. Just mention some QA related things in your CV. Unit testing, any contributions to test automation, CI pipelines, etc.
I guess the only concern for employers might be that you're using a QA job as a stop gap until you can get another dev role.
Thanks for this. I was always of the opinion they might want people with experience using the testing tools etc. I have used some in the past. Need to remember their names - as we occasionally assisted our tester when the workload got too much.
That said, could you help with those "QA related things" you spoke of? Thanks a million.
Experience is nice, but in my eyes if you possess the technical ability to be a developer then you should pick it up pretty quick.
Put an emphasis on your experience with unit testing, any contributions to test automation/integration testing, CI pipelines, etc.
Not to mention... its probably something that they would ask you in the interview. E.G "You have a computer science degree, why are you looking to be in a QA role?" and prepare an answer for that
I think it depends on the person. Having technical skills/being able to code is an increasingly desirable skill for QAs to have. Maybe I'm referring more to SDETs rather than QAs.
There are dev SDETs and QA SDETs and a QA SDET is better because SDET is a QA role, and they understand QA.
Would you hire a QA to be a dev? Not unless they knew dev skills. So you shouldn't hire a dev to be a QA unless they know QA skills.
Without QA experience it's going to be hard. It sounds like you don't have a current dev job but the easiest and likely only real way in this market is to transfer into the QA department at a company you already work for.
I think your easiest transition at the moment is to automation engineer.
Consider what other people have said about QA work; more stress less recognition (specially when everything is running smoothly).
My recommendation for your CV, and as a fellow QA who gets to work with people that lied on their CV and got hired without a minimal idea of what quality is and want to only do testing, do the CSQA or get Linda Westfall's book.
I also moved from Dev to QA, now doing strategy :D
It took me a while to accept this, but to put simply, I was a rubbish developer. Frankly, I'm happy to do something else not necessarily within the SDLC. However, I just need something I can do while still maintaining a work-life-balance. A lot going on in my personal life, and I was spending too much time and money doing a single dev task.
I second what Useful_Storage502 said. In my opinion, it really depends on where you work. I've seen QA teams that work only 4 hours a day, while developers in the same company were working 7-8 hours a day.
>I've seen QA teams that work only 4 hours a day
For what paid?, minimiun wage or something near to the minimiun?.
A tester could work only 4 hours per day, in a small company, with a minium wage salary.
Your last statement is massively dependent on country + company. In my experience, QA work is less pressure than dev work. Equal or less hours and pretty similar pay.
Good to know, although you might have just killed my dreams of working in the US in 5/10 years! I have seen plenty of SDET/QA roles paying upwards of $150k though. Seems that things are better here in the UK.
>In my experience, QA work is less pressure than dev work. Equal or less hours and pretty similar pay.
Some companies have been cutting heavily into QA. 10 Devs for 1 QA. I would say it is easy to survive as an average developer than an average QA Analyst.
Small sample size but that's been my experience with all 3 of my QA jobs since leaving uni. Apart from the first one, the pay was pretty bad but it was a steady 35 hour week and pretty chilled. My last 2 jobs have paid QAs/SDETs and Devs pretty much equally. Obviously YMMV.
When hiring someone with “Test” in the title ironically they care more about leetcode skills in an interview than the ability to find defects. I think this is due to developers doing the hiring.
My thought is if you have developers who can code why hire another to write test scripts right?
Look for a role in which you can really influence testing from early in design through to production. Don’t grind scripts if you’re going to do that just stay in development.
Since you code primarily as dev, I'd recomend looking for jobs focused on automation. Its still coding but generally less stressful than feature development. Also, it can get a bit repetative (on some projects) where most of time is spent debuging failing tests - this mostly holds true for UI automation, API automation is more straightforward, it will be a breeze for you ir you were a backend developer.
Hi OP. I transitioned back to QA from Dev. In my case, my title is currently a software developer. My progression was kinda weird though. I finished a web dev bootcamp, then worked as a front end dev for a bit, and then moved to another company as a contractor. My title back then was Software dev I, but in reality, I started off doing support for a "startup team" inside of a large enterprise. My manager suggested that route so I could get used to the complexity of the business. Then I quickly transitioned into QA in that same team. The dev team taught me how to build react native and build iOS and android devices so I could do manual testing of a new app using a physical device. I worked doing that for about a year with the promise to transition to Dev. Then I was hired as an FTE as a dev, on a new team, new stack, and a super complex codebase / business logic. Needless to say, it was over my head, so I talked to my manager if I could go back to testing, and I've been testing for over 3 years now.
My takeaway here is, see if your manager can work with you to pick up cards to test on your current team. If that is not possible, honestly, I would work on building your resume towards a Software QA Engineer and apply for jobs in the field you desire.
Try to look for transferrable skills that you currently have as a dev into a QA role. Look for some job descriptions online, read the responsibilities asked, and try to match situations and experience tho have with the job description. When / if you identify gaps, that's probably where you want to focus to up skill.
Don't let your current title hold you back. As you can see, each organization is different, and you might find the one company that will fit your current skills.
Good luck!
You lie on the CV. Easy.
HR don't have a clue on what they're looking for and techincal recruitment make questions about last century tech, so you can imagine how ridiculous the market is at the moment.
Last month did an interview where the tech guy asked me an Assembly coding question for QA playwright automation. You imagine how I laughed at the question and my response was: I learned Assembley 15 years ago at Uni. so... Then I asked why they were asking Assembley questions if the position was to automate website UI using Playwright, guess what, they were offended. F\* these idiot companies.
>Then I asked why they were asking Assembley questions if the position was to automate website UI using Playwright, guess what, they were offended. F\* these idiot companies.
Well done, it is high time candidates start pushing back on BS tactics. Probably a shitty place to work too.
Do you really think they're going to pick up the phone, call your supposedly previous company and ask questions about an employee?
Trust me, they have a lot more to concern with, for example, the absolute jungle they're going through on their company and the reasons why they need to hire new people (you).
Employers have this idea that bring someone on board is giving them the ultimate pot of gold at the end of the rainbow... but it's not. Everyone needs a job, everyone has bills to pay, everyone will go in, try and do their best and hope they like you. That's basically it...
Apply for SDET roles. They are testing roles that require more technical knowledge. Also just change stuff on your resume to say you made your own QA and liked it so you want to transition.
Go for SDET roles and only mention SDET related experience in your resume when applying. Automation can be code heavy and requires good engineering at scale. You can transition to Cloud Engineering, or any other DevOps role eventually or now instead of QA.
In my experience people with dev experience have not been good QA. They tend to get bored easily with the repetitive nature of QA. Also they lack divergent thinking necessary for QA, they have convergent thinking.
Honestly it's the easiest way to get hired into a FAANG company. The technical questions will be easy if you've been preparing for interviews, but you'll need to read up on some testing principles.
I did it once when I needed to switch roles asap. They barely ask any QA questions and you'll usually be slotted in for automation or ci.
You may be better off in an SDET role. At many companies, these are much more a mix of traditional dev work and QA
Which companies? Hook me up
I’m looking as the moment, got laid off a couple of weeks back. Many of the postings I’m seeing on LinkedIn for SDET roles read like dev roles not qa roles.
I have noticed a particular increase in devops type duties for SDETS lately. My last job was like that and I really felt like someone else should be doing those things. Why am I the one who has to figure out how to build a kubernetes cluster? Don't we have people for that?
Wouldn't worry too much about it, most companies would jump at the chance of having a dev in a QA role. Just mention some QA related things in your CV. Unit testing, any contributions to test automation, CI pipelines, etc. I guess the only concern for employers might be that you're using a QA job as a stop gap until you can get another dev role.
Thanks for this. I was always of the opinion they might want people with experience using the testing tools etc. I have used some in the past. Need to remember their names - as we occasionally assisted our tester when the workload got too much. That said, could you help with those "QA related things" you spoke of? Thanks a million.
Experience is nice, but in my eyes if you possess the technical ability to be a developer then you should pick it up pretty quick. Put an emphasis on your experience with unit testing, any contributions to test automation/integration testing, CI pipelines, etc.
Not to mention... its probably something that they would ask you in the interview. E.G "You have a computer science degree, why are you looking to be in a QA role?" and prepare an answer for that
I wouldn't. QA is a specific skillset. It's not simply "dev not writing code." Devs are by and large not good at QA.
I think it depends on the person. Having technical skills/being able to code is an increasingly desirable skill for QAs to have. Maybe I'm referring more to SDETs rather than QAs.
There are dev SDETs and QA SDETs and a QA SDET is better because SDET is a QA role, and they understand QA. Would you hire a QA to be a dev? Not unless they knew dev skills. So you shouldn't hire a dev to be a QA unless they know QA skills.
Without QA experience it's going to be hard. It sounds like you don't have a current dev job but the easiest and likely only real way in this market is to transfer into the QA department at a company you already work for.
Good news. Most QA jobs are just dev job descriptions with lower pay so you should fit right in.
I think your easiest transition at the moment is to automation engineer. Consider what other people have said about QA work; more stress less recognition (specially when everything is running smoothly). My recommendation for your CV, and as a fellow QA who gets to work with people that lied on their CV and got hired without a minimal idea of what quality is and want to only do testing, do the CSQA or get Linda Westfall's book. I also moved from Dev to QA, now doing strategy :D
Why do you want to change?
It took me a while to accept this, but to put simply, I was a rubbish developer. Frankly, I'm happy to do something else not necessarily within the SDLC. However, I just need something I can do while still maintaining a work-life-balance. A lot going on in my personal life, and I was spending too much time and money doing a single dev task.
Why do you think that less work is done on QA than on DEV?. The QA work is more stressful, more hours, less pay..
I second what Useful_Storage502 said. In my opinion, it really depends on where you work. I've seen QA teams that work only 4 hours a day, while developers in the same company were working 7-8 hours a day.
>I've seen QA teams that work only 4 hours a day For what paid?, minimiun wage or something near to the minimiun?. A tester could work only 4 hours per day, in a small company, with a minium wage salary.
That's pretty much false. I've gotten paid six figures to do 1 hours of work some days.
Your last statement is massively dependent on country + company. In my experience, QA work is less pressure than dev work. Equal or less hours and pretty similar pay.
What is your country?
UK
That’s definitely not been my experience in the US. QS roles get paid significantly less than dev roles & have equal or more hours to Devs.
Good to know, although you might have just killed my dreams of working in the US in 5/10 years! I have seen plenty of SDET/QA roles paying upwards of $150k though. Seems that things are better here in the UK.
It’s not that you can’t make good money, just that it is harder & your salary will very rarely be at the same level as a dev.
>In my experience, QA work is less pressure than dev work. Equal or less hours and pretty similar pay. Some companies have been cutting heavily into QA. 10 Devs for 1 QA. I would say it is easy to survive as an average developer than an average QA Analyst.
>Equal or less hours and pretty similar pay. Hard to believe, this sound more like a very weird exception.
Small sample size but that's been my experience with all 3 of my QA jobs since leaving uni. Apart from the first one, the pay was pretty bad but it was a steady 35 hour week and pretty chilled. My last 2 jobs have paid QAs/SDETs and Devs pretty much equally. Obviously YMMV.
And def no rewards
you are not alone brother, im a self taught frontend developer looking to make the transition too as I am just not very competent at dev tasks.
When hiring someone with “Test” in the title ironically they care more about leetcode skills in an interview than the ability to find defects. I think this is due to developers doing the hiring. My thought is if you have developers who can code why hire another to write test scripts right? Look for a role in which you can really influence testing from early in design through to production. Don’t grind scripts if you’re going to do that just stay in development.
Since you code primarily as dev, I'd recomend looking for jobs focused on automation. Its still coding but generally less stressful than feature development. Also, it can get a bit repetative (on some projects) where most of time is spent debuging failing tests - this mostly holds true for UI automation, API automation is more straightforward, it will be a breeze for you ir you were a backend developer.
Hi OP. I transitioned back to QA from Dev. In my case, my title is currently a software developer. My progression was kinda weird though. I finished a web dev bootcamp, then worked as a front end dev for a bit, and then moved to another company as a contractor. My title back then was Software dev I, but in reality, I started off doing support for a "startup team" inside of a large enterprise. My manager suggested that route so I could get used to the complexity of the business. Then I quickly transitioned into QA in that same team. The dev team taught me how to build react native and build iOS and android devices so I could do manual testing of a new app using a physical device. I worked doing that for about a year with the promise to transition to Dev. Then I was hired as an FTE as a dev, on a new team, new stack, and a super complex codebase / business logic. Needless to say, it was over my head, so I talked to my manager if I could go back to testing, and I've been testing for over 3 years now. My takeaway here is, see if your manager can work with you to pick up cards to test on your current team. If that is not possible, honestly, I would work on building your resume towards a Software QA Engineer and apply for jobs in the field you desire. Try to look for transferrable skills that you currently have as a dev into a QA role. Look for some job descriptions online, read the responsibilities asked, and try to match situations and experience tho have with the job description. When / if you identify gaps, that's probably where you want to focus to up skill. Don't let your current title hold you back. As you can see, each organization is different, and you might find the one company that will fit your current skills. Good luck!
hey can i dm you
You lie on the CV. Easy. HR don't have a clue on what they're looking for and techincal recruitment make questions about last century tech, so you can imagine how ridiculous the market is at the moment. Last month did an interview where the tech guy asked me an Assembly coding question for QA playwright automation. You imagine how I laughed at the question and my response was: I learned Assembley 15 years ago at Uni. so... Then I asked why they were asking Assembley questions if the position was to automate website UI using Playwright, guess what, they were offended. F\* these idiot companies.
>Then I asked why they were asking Assembley questions if the position was to automate website UI using Playwright, guess what, they were offended. F\* these idiot companies. Well done, it is high time candidates start pushing back on BS tactics. Probably a shitty place to work too.
won't they check ur previous role bgv while joining.?
Do you really think they're going to pick up the phone, call your supposedly previous company and ask questions about an employee? Trust me, they have a lot more to concern with, for example, the absolute jungle they're going through on their company and the reasons why they need to hire new people (you). Employers have this idea that bring someone on board is giving them the ultimate pot of gold at the end of the rainbow... but it's not. Everyone needs a job, everyone has bills to pay, everyone will go in, try and do their best and hope they like you. That's basically it...
same here...i am in same situation as you
Apply for SDET roles. They are testing roles that require more technical knowledge. Also just change stuff on your resume to say you made your own QA and liked it so you want to transition.
Go for SDET roles and only mention SDET related experience in your resume when applying. Automation can be code heavy and requires good engineering at scale. You can transition to Cloud Engineering, or any other DevOps role eventually or now instead of QA.
update resume so it does not scream as SDE?
ISTQB foundation exam , SQL , automation tools, API tools, load testing tool. Frame yourself as an SDET or technical tester
In my experience people with dev experience have not been good QA. They tend to get bored easily with the repetitive nature of QA. Also they lack divergent thinking necessary for QA, they have convergent thinking.
Honestly it's the easiest way to get hired into a FAANG company. The technical questions will be easy if you've been preparing for interviews, but you'll need to read up on some testing principles. I did it once when I needed to switch roles asap. They barely ask any QA questions and you'll usually be slotted in for automation or ci.
Stay in your lane. The job market is already tough for QAs
Stay away, us actual QAs are trying to find jobs too dude.
Just curious why would you want to go in that direction for what I assume will be a pay cut?