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In my experience, the best developer/testers bring what I call the boredom herusitic to software testing. Inother words, they often automate rote tasks so they can focus on testing and analysis of the software. An example I use often is the "add contact" feature in an instant messaging or email client. To test the feature, I'd need to try long names, ...

You describe several skills that are advantageous in a tester: analytical skills, the ability to find flaws, and tolerance for repetition. You also seem to be interested in testing. A potential disadvantage from your own candid admissions: reluctance to take ultimate responsibility and, to a lesser degree, discomfort with starting something from scratch. ...

Personally I find that tester who codes in addition to great testing skills is much more effective than the non-technical equivalent. A techical tester can esentially bring more "weapons to bear" on testing problems than you could without those skill sets. Some examples: Need to generate some test data? Write a tool to do it. Need to check security access ...

I never see common agreement on any software-related titles. In some shops where I have worked "Architect" implies a thinker, not a doer. For QA Architect, it means someone who thinks about QA, researches and suggests improved methods and metrics. Sometimes it's someone who trains others. In other shops, "Architect" just means "very Senior". It's the ...

I've had success using tester/developers for code review of production code. I've found that developers review code thinking, "Will this work", while testers review code thinking "In what ways could this not work". I've also found that most testers discover new test ideas while reviewing production code. I wrote a paper on the experiences of our team in ...

Like Sam points out experience with SQL and/or with MySQL will greatly depend on the project and/or the company with whom you hope to work. SQL skills are one aspect of Software Testing that focuses specially on technology. James Bach, an expert in the field of Software Testing with 20+ years experience, published a Tester's Syllabus for those who are ...

Java Bean, I think you may want to ask yourself a few questions first: do you want to be involved in testing or in programming? In my experience, colleges are usually less than stellar in the QA domain, and tend to assume that testing is "any warm body" and useful to familiarize someone with an application before they start coding with it. do you like ...

It's always a challenge to change careers. And as a hiring manager, a red flag always go off when someone wants to change careers and get hired onto my team. I see a few here. You say that you are burned out as a developer. That's understandable. So are you considering QA as "easier"? Less likely to cause burnout? Be prepared to discuss this in depth ...

A few years ago I made this same choice. I was a tester, moved into C++ C# development, then moved back to testing. I still like writing code and there are some coding opportunities in testing. The main reason I switched back was that in development I found the thing I got the most enjoyment from was bug fixing. I know that sounds somewhat trivial but I ...

A tester can add value to the product and development team by making/influencing key software design choices even before coding starts. Testers with programming background can understand and explore possible software design choices for better code testability and they can determine "if the code is fit for use?" Design choices like "Dependency Injection" and ...

Some general skills carry over very well. 99% of it comes down to the mindset. My testing career started in electronics manufacturing. For most of the assemblies, there were only a few pre-determined tests that were run on them that were always black and white in regards to pass/fail. The only time that we were given the chance to be creative was with ...

At the risk of sounding too much "me too", I'd say that if your associate is able to use software well and enjoys the puzzle-work of QA, there's a good chance they'll go well in software QA. Some of the big differences between non-software and software QA are things like: Software tends not to be able to start from a clean, error-free state. Since a piece ...

I moved to Software QA from a non-IT role. My prior QA was airline tickets and reservations. Please see prior questions on this Stack Exchange forum regarding what makes a skilled Tester / QA Analyst. Listed will be the traits (competencies) that are required at the very core of the heart of a passionate Tester. Show them to your friend, who can then ask ...

First of all, it is understandable that a former developer might approach testing in terms of individually testable layers or sub-components. However, as a tester, if you do nothing else, you must verify that the finished product behaves correctly when exercised using whatever interfaces the end-user will use. Everything else is secondary to that -- ...

I'd be intellectually dishonest if I didn't admit that part of this is simply wanting to pass the buck instead of being the one ultimately responsible for something. In SQA you are more responsible for a feature than a developer is. When nasty bugs make it to production, all eyes are on you and you must do an RCA or explain how it was missed. If it ...

SQL is specific to the project you're working on. Knowledge of SQL may or may not be applicable to a SQA position. I would say there are probably more SQA positions than not that don't have that requirement. The most important thing for an SQA position is logical problem solving skills. Especially for entry level SQA positions most of the focus will be ...

I don't know what "in an office setting" means here. I use WinTask for lots of my testing. You can find links to trials of it and other tools here. Perhaps one or more of these might help: http://www.allthingsquality.com/2010/04/trial-versions-of-commercial-test.html

On a true agile project the line between development and testing can become very, very blurry. A team that is properly implementing behavior driven development (BDD) will be automating acceptance tests as part of each feature. There are pros and cons with this approach as each feature is not done until the automation is written, however the tests are ...

My company has been using Agile for a while so I can provide some answers. First of all we do only black-box testing, we don't have the access to the code. Therefore each story has some technical sub-tasks defined and these tasks are handled only by developers. We don't test them. As for the rest - we share all the tasks/stories (whatever you call it). ...

Developer for 20 year before switching to testing which I've done for the last 4 years and not regretted the move at all. Your first point about having to come up with all the content yourself struck a chord - I was great at finishing off programs but not starting them off Problem solving - you gave the example of being frustrated at tracking down ...

Two Interesting reads, Offers great insights on Senior QA Roles What is a test architect? From John Morrison's Blog - Test Architect

As far as I can tell, you are trying to answer the question "How do I take the information I have from usage of my current system - number of concurrent users and hits per second - and convert that into how many concurrent threads in JMeter?". I'll answer the best I can, if that is not your question, please correct me. Tools like JMeter don't allow you to ...

Is this a real-world question, or an academic one? Are you trying to find the answer for your particular application that you are testing? Or are you looking for a general formula as an answer? If you have an application that is already in production, then you can analyze the logs and determine the usage pattern of your 2000+ users. That will tell you how ...

First I want to commend you for an honest and transparent inward examination of your strengths and weaknesses. I don't see it enough. Blinders thoughts: I see this as a variant of "can't see the forest for the trees" which I suffer from myself occasionally. Both developers and testers must keep a holistic mentality and see the program as a whole, never ...