Testing career: points to ponder

Is software testing an 'art' or 'science' or for that matter is it 'engineering? How far a software testing career can take you? Will the career bug you?

If you are choosing the testing career, are you prepared not to get stressed with stress testing or feel loaded with load testing? Would you be functional while doing functional testing or structured to carry out structural testing? Can you apply 'Black box' testing to the black box in an aircraft? Or can you think of an 'out of box' approach to 'White box' testing? If it is testing times for you with the software testing, would you leave it for the customer of the software or live with testing times?

Answers to these questions depends upon your foundation in software testing. Answers would be greatly influenced by those who laid the foundation.

If you belong to the fortunate class of computer science graduates you would have heard of testing as one of the phases of software development life cycle in 'software engineering' subject. If you are less fortunate, you would have gone to attend a testing training course in an institute. There are more institutes claiming to teach testing than the number of institutes teaching Microsoft Office. There are testing training institutes, which offer free java training and there are J2EE training institutes offering free testing course.

Your career depends upon whether you got the training free or part of 'two-for-one' offer. Or, do you belong to those lot who don't believe in those offers, but falling in the trap of those who take you for ride catchy advertisements and start losing your sleep over the multinational dreams?

It all depends upon whether you are looking for a career in testing or a job? Will the testing training make you employable? Are you worth an investment by the employer to retain and grow you within the organization or would stay on the top of list for retrenchment in the next immediate opportunity when the benches are to be vacated? Remember, you should be able to survive when there is downfall; it is not just the matter of getting a job when the going is good. Software Testing is only going to get more prominence in coming days. The eco-system that is required to sustain any career is now present for software testing.

As a discipline, as a university course it does already figure in the syllabus for computer science. You have alternate channels for getting trained on testing available through mushrooming software testing training centers. You now have certification examinations for software testing which are recognised globally.

It is essential that you go for a certification examination during your early stage of testing career. Popular and globally recognized certifications are provided by International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB), International Institute for Software Testing (IIST) and QAI. Let me warn you that all those training courses starting with 'Certified' are not really certifications in the true sense. Real certification programs are offered by institutions of repute and managed by experts in software testing. Do an evaluation for your self to choose the best one. There are many associations for those interested in software quality. SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network) is one of those which conducts monthly programs on various processes related to software which includes testing.

K R Jayakumar is CEO & President of AmitySoft Technologies, Chennai.