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I am having four years of work experience as a manual test engineer. I have knowledge of database testing also using SQL Server. I have never gotten any professional IT certification.
What are some good IT certifications, that a software test engineer can get?
None, personally I have signed the professional tester's manifesto, because I think tester certifications currently do not make sense. Mainly they are to theoretical and pretty useless in the real world if you ask me.
One course that might be interesting is the Certified Agile Tester path. It is one of the only courses that has a practical exam of 2 hours. Here is a review of the course, but I still haven't found the time and the budget to try it and see if is really worth it.
For test automation engineers it could be helpfully to get a programming language certification for example Java or C#. As a tester you are very close to the development team, so having proven development knowledge might a plus.
Blurb from the professional tester's manifesto:
I, as a professional software tester, believe:
...
That organizations who make money from creating or promoting standards and certifications are biased in their thinking by the potential financial rewards of convincing organizations that only certified testers are professional testers. Those organizations may include those who sell training, consulting or other related services.
That testing benefits from diversity and not homogeneity: that testing is not a profession that can be standardized but instead needs to remain an intellectual professional activity.
...
read the full statement here.
It depends.
If the jobs in your area that meet your skill set require certification, then you need certification.
If they don't, then you don't need certification.
A little more detail:
Certification does not demonstrate that you are a good tester, or even a competent tester. It proves that you memorized and (in some cases) understood a defined body of knowledge well enough to pass a test.
Trying to apply what that test and body of knowledge contains to the real world can be problematic - there are always compromises you have to make, and often the most important part of testing is your ability to find holes in other people's assumptions (particularly the assumptions made by programmers and business analysts). That isn't something that can certified or examined.
In my opinion it is not important to gather certifications because it doesn't always reflect your "real skills". Because most of the foundation certificates are only a test of your theoretical knowledge of the topic. But of course, if you would like to broaden your horizon, I won't disadvise.
The first thing coming to my mind is the ISTQB Certification. The ISTQB is a non-profit association that standardized qualifications for testers in different fields (get more information from the Certification Product Portfolio. The ISTQB consists of member boards for several countries. The one for your country could be the first "place to go". Some of the boards offer more than the base certificates listed on the ISTQB product portfolio (e.g. for testing tools).
Otherwise I would recommend a web search to find something appropriate for you.
