Change the profession of a tester or continue to develop in it?

Question

Software testing

Good afternoon toaster. At the moment I am a tester (manual / automation) in the largest bank in the country. For a long time I began to think about the fact that office life does not suit me and I want to switch to an allotment, even if for a little less money. After looking at the vacancies, I realized that testers are less willing to take on the job than developers. From this I have a question. What should I do next, develop in testing / automated testing (at the moment I have 4 years of experience and a year of automation), or learn something else, such as Javascript, and then look for remote work? I will say right away that I am not very inclined towards programming, so I don’t want to take something from the backend (since it seems to me more difficult than the front). But I seem to have mastered Java at the level of auto tests. Once again I will say, the ultimate goal is either freelancing or remote work.

Answer 1

IMHO, working from home leads to the degradation of communication skills. As a result, you cut off your development path in terms of managing people and processes, and therefore, in terms of moving up the career ladder.

Answer 2

If you are not predisposed to programming - why do you need it?
Take testing to a new level, learn more about automation (I think you are completely unfamiliar with technologies), change your work to a freer and less bureaucratic one.

Answer 3

the ultimate goal is either freelancing or remote work

- this is the same as saying "My goal in life is to be homeless and sleep under a bridge with rats."

Answer 4

I will say right away that I am not very disposed to programming.

So you don't have to deal with this! But learning JS for a tester is a good idea. Look towards Cypress/Jest/Puppeteer for great tooling. Well, since you were engaged in automation, try to look towards CI / CD, the skill is very much appreciated + basic system administration skills will not interfere with anyone. What I mean is, improve your automation skills and it will be much easier with remote / freelancing.