How to grow from a junior tester into a good tester? The opinion of Alexander Alexandrov
Where to learn beginner testers is more or less clear to everyone: there are many articles, courses, books and manuals. But what to do to those who grew up from June to Middle is unclear. On the eve of the DUMP conference , we decided to ask well-known testers what they would advise to the juniors who want to grow. The first to answer our questions was “the grandfather of Russian testing,” Alexander Alexandrov, a test manager at Luxoft, a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences, an expert at RSTQB.
After what event does a june stop being jung and become a tester?
Testing is an area that, at first glance, seems very simple to learn and work in it: “You don’t need to know anything, press the buttons and that's it.”
')
June ceases to be a juna when he has an interest in this engineering, in this activity. Then the roads to the profession open up before him and then everything depends on him - he can grow. He can be a juna in terms of experience, qualifications, completed projects. But he may have an inclination, talent, luck to this work. And formally, he is June, he has been working for you for the second week, but he does things that you, a qualified person, do not work for, because his “little god kissed his forehead.” This is very important, because some things can be developed to a certain level. Moreover, if you do not want, but is obliged to do it, it becomes difficult work. June will cease to be a juna when he becomes interested in what he does when he is awakened with excitement and ambition to become the best. He is interested in digging, work better than he works now.
Testing is a very difficult activity. The tester is looking for software bugs. He does not know whether they are, how many are there, where they are, how to find them, but he finds them! As a sapper, only without a mine detector and blindfolded. If he does this, then he is not an ordinary person. And testers are all like that, they all have their eyes blindfolded. No one knows where these defects are, but they find them. Therefore, testing is a challenge. This is a task for a person who, on the one hand, is interested in, and on the other, for a person who is not afraid of difficulties. If a person does everything, as it is written, from this to this, then it looks like cooking a recipe - you can eat, but there will be no “wow”.
How much does the team influence the formation of the tester?
The team can influence very much, and here I would not select a tester. After all, she and the team that all influence each other, and it is important that the process of this influence is properly structured. That the process was aimed at achieving common goals - to manufacture a product with high quality. This is the so-called team spirit - team spirit, cohesion.
Very often, testers make scapegoats. As they say sometimes, the success of the project is the same, the developers did a great job of writing the cool code, the manager did a good job too. And the testers, they just looked for errors and would have found them without them. But if an error is found during operation, then “why did testers miss it, why did they not find it?” It turns out - who has tops and who has roots. This in no way contributes to the focus of the team. Because if you do your job and you don’t get anything except for the negative, then at some point your motivation disappears, you have no desire to work in this team. But 3-4 such teams - and the specialist will start to think, “why do I do testing if nobody needs it?” Therefore, the tester should have two important qualities: tediousness and the iron nervous system.
There are a lot of courses and materials for beginning testers, and what to do “continuing?” How to find really good conferences and events?
No common recipes. As Tolstoy wrote: "All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Testers deal with misfortunes in their essence - with problems in projects. I am sure that each project has its own problems. Therefore, to a large extent, continuing testers need to be able to look back, to notice their own mistakes and mistakes that everyone has. And try to overcome them. And when the tester overcomes them, he will look for a solution to the problems. The answer to the question “how not to miss such a bug” can be found in books, training, at a conference. But the universal council “the treasure is buried under that tree” is not.
It is very important not to calm down and see your shortcomings or to ask someone else to point out them, while this should be absolutely real flaws. Not so that all the dogs were hung up on you - “look, the defect is in the sale”. Yes, testers missed it, but its developers created it. About this, no one ever remembers - everyone blames the testers. Therefore, the activity of the tester is also good because it is a profession in which one has to continually learn and continuously improve.
Testing conferences are not so many, so I would suggest that everyone continue to look at everything. But even this does not guarantee that the tester will find answers to his questions there. Because all the same there should be someone first who will cope with a new problem.
From the materials I would recommend to pay attention to the international certification organization for testers ISTQB . It has regional departments, including in Russia, it is headed by Andrei Konushin. ISTQB has a rather large expertise. Materials that are in this organization are absolutely available. They can make a person think and act. There are no answers to the questions, but there is global testing experience that can be useful to the inquisitive boys and girls in testing who want to grow and develop. There is a large line of levels, for each level there is a syllabus.
At the same time, I, of course, do not disregard SQA Days and conferences, and the sites software-testing.ru (led by Aleksey Barantsev) and testitquickly.com (conducted by Aleksey Lupan). But again, this must be done very regularly.
An experienced cool tester of your dreams. How do you recognize him from a thousand?
We must see how he performs his job duties. From the "crowd" it is impossible to recognize him until he begins to engage in testing. And when he starts - everything will fall into place.
It is like in any area. If a person is not "in battle", then he reasons, he says, praises or scolds himself. Well, why praise when you can show that you can.
What would you do if not testing? :)
Of course, I would like to study with my grandchildren, but unfortunately I have no grandchildren yet. I do not know, I have been testing for a long time, since 1974. I was even given a star on SQA Days, on which “the grandfather of the Russian testing” is written below. My friend and colleague Sergey Smirnov came up with this nickname, and then someone heard and as a result I was presented with such a memorable sign.
I don’t know - I’ve also been a developer for a long time, and I have written large programs, say 30 thousand lines in assembler. The fact that I am engaged in testing is a great merit of my supervisor from the 3rd course, from coursework to the dissertation, and my great friend, with whom we maintain relationships and now - Professor Vitaly Kaufman. He has been living and working in Finland since 1991, so we rarely see each other. This is a person to whom I owe a great deal from the point of view of my formation, both professional and personal. He is an absolutely wonderful man, and we constantly correspond and communicate via Skype. Communication with him instilled in me an interest in testing. Because in 1974 it was he who “felt” the subject area, which I began to study under his leadership. In fact, this was the first way to test.
I do not know, probably, someone would be :) Most likely, would be a developer or technical writer, because it also turns out. Now, for example, I combine the work of a tester and a technical writer.
I’ve been too many years old, and I’ve been doing testing for too long now to “rewind everything” and imagine what I would do 40 years ago. But the grandchildren, I hope, are much more interesting to do :)
In the next post - tips from Maxim Zakharov (SKB Kontur), Ilya Vakhrushev (Exadel), Arseny Batyrov (Badoo) and Anastasia Aseeva (Alpha Laboratory).
After what event does a june stop being jung and become a tester?
Testing is an area that, at first glance, seems very simple to learn and work in it: “You don’t need to know anything, press the buttons and that's it.”
')
June ceases to be a juna when he has an interest in this engineering, in this activity. Then the roads to the profession open up before him and then everything depends on him - he can grow. He can be a juna in terms of experience, qualifications, completed projects. But he may have an inclination, talent, luck to this work. And formally, he is June, he has been working for you for the second week, but he does things that you, a qualified person, do not work for, because his “little god kissed his forehead.” This is very important, because some things can be developed to a certain level. Moreover, if you do not want, but is obliged to do it, it becomes difficult work. June will cease to be a juna when he becomes interested in what he does when he is awakened with excitement and ambition to become the best. He is interested in digging, work better than he works now.
Testing is a very difficult activity. The tester is looking for software bugs. He does not know whether they are, how many are there, where they are, how to find them, but he finds them! As a sapper, only without a mine detector and blindfolded. If he does this, then he is not an ordinary person. And testers are all like that, they all have their eyes blindfolded. No one knows where these defects are, but they find them. Therefore, testing is a challenge. This is a task for a person who, on the one hand, is interested in, and on the other, for a person who is not afraid of difficulties. If a person does everything, as it is written, from this to this, then it looks like cooking a recipe - you can eat, but there will be no “wow”.
How much does the team influence the formation of the tester?
The team can influence very much, and here I would not select a tester. After all, she and the team that all influence each other, and it is important that the process of this influence is properly structured. That the process was aimed at achieving common goals - to manufacture a product with high quality. This is the so-called team spirit - team spirit, cohesion.
Very often, testers make scapegoats. As they say sometimes, the success of the project is the same, the developers did a great job of writing the cool code, the manager did a good job too. And the testers, they just looked for errors and would have found them without them. But if an error is found during operation, then “why did testers miss it, why did they not find it?” It turns out - who has tops and who has roots. This in no way contributes to the focus of the team. Because if you do your job and you don’t get anything except for the negative, then at some point your motivation disappears, you have no desire to work in this team. But 3-4 such teams - and the specialist will start to think, “why do I do testing if nobody needs it?” Therefore, the tester should have two important qualities: tediousness and the iron nervous system.
There are a lot of courses and materials for beginning testers, and what to do “continuing?” How to find really good conferences and events?
No common recipes. As Tolstoy wrote: "All happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Testers deal with misfortunes in their essence - with problems in projects. I am sure that each project has its own problems. Therefore, to a large extent, continuing testers need to be able to look back, to notice their own mistakes and mistakes that everyone has. And try to overcome them. And when the tester overcomes them, he will look for a solution to the problems. The answer to the question “how not to miss such a bug” can be found in books, training, at a conference. But the universal council “the treasure is buried under that tree” is not.
It is very important not to calm down and see your shortcomings or to ask someone else to point out them, while this should be absolutely real flaws. Not so that all the dogs were hung up on you - “look, the defect is in the sale”. Yes, testers missed it, but its developers created it. About this, no one ever remembers - everyone blames the testers. Therefore, the activity of the tester is also good because it is a profession in which one has to continually learn and continuously improve.
Testing conferences are not so many, so I would suggest that everyone continue to look at everything. But even this does not guarantee that the tester will find answers to his questions there. Because all the same there should be someone first who will cope with a new problem.
From the materials I would recommend to pay attention to the international certification organization for testers ISTQB . It has regional departments, including in Russia, it is headed by Andrei Konushin. ISTQB has a rather large expertise. Materials that are in this organization are absolutely available. They can make a person think and act. There are no answers to the questions, but there is global testing experience that can be useful to the inquisitive boys and girls in testing who want to grow and develop. There is a large line of levels, for each level there is a syllabus.
At the same time, I, of course, do not disregard SQA Days and conferences, and the sites software-testing.ru (led by Aleksey Barantsev) and testitquickly.com (conducted by Aleksey Lupan). But again, this must be done very regularly.
An experienced cool tester of your dreams. How do you recognize him from a thousand?
We must see how he performs his job duties. From the "crowd" it is impossible to recognize him until he begins to engage in testing. And when he starts - everything will fall into place.
It is like in any area. If a person is not "in battle", then he reasons, he says, praises or scolds himself. Well, why praise when you can show that you can.
What would you do if not testing? :)
Of course, I would like to study with my grandchildren, but unfortunately I have no grandchildren yet. I do not know, I have been testing for a long time, since 1974. I was even given a star on SQA Days, on which “the grandfather of the Russian testing” is written below. My friend and colleague Sergey Smirnov came up with this nickname, and then someone heard and as a result I was presented with such a memorable sign.
I don’t know - I’ve also been a developer for a long time, and I have written large programs, say 30 thousand lines in assembler. The fact that I am engaged in testing is a great merit of my supervisor from the 3rd course, from coursework to the dissertation, and my great friend, with whom we maintain relationships and now - Professor Vitaly Kaufman. He has been living and working in Finland since 1991, so we rarely see each other. This is a person to whom I owe a great deal from the point of view of my formation, both professional and personal. He is an absolutely wonderful man, and we constantly correspond and communicate via Skype. Communication with him instilled in me an interest in testing. Because in 1974 it was he who “felt” the subject area, which I began to study under his leadership. In fact, this was the first way to test.
I do not know, probably, someone would be :) Most likely, would be a developer or technical writer, because it also turns out. Now, for example, I combine the work of a tester and a technical writer.
I’ve been too many years old, and I’ve been doing testing for too long now to “rewind everything” and imagine what I would do 40 years ago. But the grandchildren, I hope, are much more interesting to do :)
In the next post - tips from Maxim Zakharov (SKB Kontur), Ilya Vakhrushev (Exadel), Arseny Batyrov (Badoo) and Anastasia Aseeva (Alpha Laboratory).
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/351864/
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