Starting a career as a tester and gradually getting qualified as a programmer: how realistic / expedient and what are the difficulties?

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big_hasan2016-09-13 09:41:50

Software testing

big_hasan, 2016-09-13 09:41:50

There is a desire (not quite explainable) to develop as a programmer. At the same time, as they say, "I want to eat" and I have to work somewhere. The ideal option is to get a job as a junior / trainee, so that you have enough to live on and you can develop. However, the situation on the labor market is such that without experience, they are most often looking for testers, rather than programmers. I have a poor idea of how the work of a tester is organized, so the thought arose, is it possible to work as a tester and gradually retrain as a programmer? Or does the work of a tester require so much knowledge and effort that it will be very difficult to develop simultaneously during work?

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4 answer(s)

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protven, 2016-09-13
@big_hasan

In reality, it is better to go straight to a large integrator/developer company.
Approximate path: "manual tester" -> "loader/automator" -> "developer".
It is optimal to find a large long-term project in which you will first understand and have competence, knowing how everything is arranged there at the top level, maybe even from a business point of view. And then it will be easier for you to fix bugs and even write new functionality and think over the architecture.
All this is not theoretician's inventions, but practical experience, there are colleagues who moved from testers to developers, I myself am a former administrator who moved to the developers of the project, which was admin.
But.
Firstly, if you become a cool auto-tester or loader, then the salary and interest from work will be, IMHO, no less than that of a developer with a similar skill set.
Secondly, I would first try to go to the developers, what's the point of wasting time if you still plan to go to the development anyway. Leave the path through the testers as a fallback.
To do this, look at internship programs in large companies.

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Puma Thailand, 2016-09-13
@opium

I know a taxi driver, a furniture seller, a military man who became programmers.

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Andrey, 2016-09-22
@vodan

I went to testers myself, but I didn’t think about moving to developers, now I’m already the head of the department and I’m implementing automatic testing (I write in python myself)
My advice to you is to go to a big integrator, there will be many different projects and don’t sit on one for a long time (but everywhere you have to understand why and how it happens) you will quickly master a lot of technologies and techniques, try to switch to automators or load testing, you will switch to consider that you are already a junior programmer and it is worth learning theory.
In general, if you want to go to the developers, go there right away, don’t waste time, finish the courses and get a job as a programmer right away.
Now I can go to PM and development, but I like testing, see if you like it.

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yupujexi, 2016-11-15
@yupujexi

NO WAY.
There are 2 types of testers.
The first are NOT PROGRAMMERS AT ALL. And you won't get any skills.
The second - INITIALLY PROGRAMMERS. And how will you work like that if you consider yourself not a programmer yet.
Well, that is, you can move from testers to programmers, but not because you were a tester. And just move on.