Ask HN: How can you get into QA? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can you get into QA?

2 pointspbj5 comments

I've tried my hand at programming before (with the intent to develop apps) and haven't got very far. That said, I've always been fascinated by and actually enjoy the process of testing and finding bugs in software/html/css/etc. I think I'd really enjoy a job in QA, but most positions I've seen for QA positions all seem to require hefty knowledge of programming and prior experience. I was just wondering - is there a roadmap for learning QA and or getting a position in it? Is having a CS degree necessary? I'd be willing to do just about anything in order to get an entry level QA gig, but I don't know where to start.

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You have to ask yourself: Are you sure you want to do QA? Some people go into QA without really knowing what QA is. QA is really a support role and won't get you very far in your career. Most people in QA do have a heavy engineering background and have an extensive programming knowledge. However, most people who go into QA do it without realizing it's not a frontline role. Try to look for a role that are customer-facing while offering opportunities to test and find bugs. Customer-facing roles are frontline roles in any company.

If you would really like QA without the customer-facing aspect, the only industry where QA is a frontline role is really in healthcare. Medical devices have to go through extensive governmental regulations and this is where QA would actually be considered a frontline role.

The book 'Testing computer software' by Cem Kaner is an excellent introduction to the field.

You will make less than a programmer while being expected to possess extensive programming skills. Where developers produce code, therefore product, therefore generating earnings and profits, QA is a cost center and does not put revenue on the books. Thus, QA gets laid off more often and you can expect to work more as a contractor with no benefits.

Be prepared to spend much time explaining how the job provides value to managers and engineers over and over and over again. You need to present good data often, and be a strong salesman for your work. Expect to hear things like 'You mean you just play with the software?'. Have a good answer ready at all times.

At many shops, if a customer finds a single bug and you missed it, even though it won't reproduce on your test configurations, everyone will consider you a failure, in spite the value of your overall contribution. For some reason this never affects the developer who created the bug.

Now, if a legal precedent is ever set that software companies are held liable for their products, QA will become front line in a damn hurry.

I am a QA engineer and was hired straight out of college, before i had much of an idea about what QA was. What i will suggest is understand what are the different types of testing -functional, performance, reliability , security etc, play with testing tools(I haven't personally tried Selenium but i have heard its pretty popular).Continue to try your hand at programming, as automation will be a huge part of your job as a QA engineer and programming questions are asked in QA interviews. You can also go through Alan Page's blogs at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/alanpa/ . I think you will find them interesting. That said as mentioned by other people in the comments, the job becomes monotonous after a while. The most exciting parts of the job will involve programming. Though you will find most of your bugs manually, continuously going through the same set of tests will exhaust you mentally after a while. Talk to some QA engineers near by and understand the job little better before you jump into it. Hoping this helps.

Many open source projects have bug databases that anyone can submit to; you might try starting with that to get some actual experience testing, finding, and reporting problems.

Write about it on a blog or some-such, to demonstrate what you've learned and what you can do. Try to distill general testing advice into longer articles.

You also might try offering your services here on HN as a QA contractor. I can imagine someone being interested in paying for a few hours of another person's view on their product.

Just some ideas! I've done a lot of testing work, though I've kind of fallen into it accidentally. It's fun for a while, but I don't think I'd want to make it my full-time job.

Try for a contract QA position. Also, tell us where you live. Maybe someone here knows of an open position looking for QA's... It's still who you know so make sure you know people in the tech field. Also try programming again because you are going to be expected to do a certain amount of automation if you are doing any kind of software QA.

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