Is Software Testing easier than Software Development?
I was a software engineer for over 4 years. Up until recently, I switched to a different line of work in IT — from being a developer to a tester.
To be honest, it was never my choice to switch to testing and it was due to project demands in my previous workplace. And for the record, the journey was quite difficult.
When people hear about my career change, most of them made remarks about testing being easier than development. I hate to say this, but either they are testing “the wrong way” or they don’t know what they are talking about.
Below is a list that I have come up based on what I experienced. The idea of testing being “easy” is a boatload of rubbish:
#1 Being a tester needs you to think out of the box — ALL THE TIME.
When you try to take the mindset of “testing-to-break” by heart, you need to think of all the possibilities on how to tear apart a system. Please don’t test software like its food served in a special plate in front of you, ready to gobble everything up. Be like Gordon Ramsay, critiquing each small bite, examining the taste. In other words, testing is like being a master chef! or being a food critique, or being a hacker! software vulnerabilities are defects!
#2 You need to grasp the ins-and-outs of the software being tested.
When you are a developer, you don’t need to be an expert of all the functionalities of a software system in fact, being a master of one or two is sufficient (at least in my experience). But being in QA requires you to be a quick-learner and learn almost, if not ALL of the ins-and-outs on how a software system works.
#3 QA requires understanding of other technical activities (CI/CD, Automation, Testing Tools).
Nowadays, manual testing is just another subset of QA. To be qualified as a good tester in the market, you need to have at least an understanding of CI/CD, Automation and Testing Tools/Frameworks. Automation is just another term for developing scripts that automate repeatable tests. This means that in order to be a competent QA engineer, you also need to have understanding of programming, data structures, and coding standards.
#4 You need to have good reporting skills or at least be comfortable at public speaking.
To be able to effectively report test results, you need to be at least comfortable at speaking publicly to be able to convey the overall quality of software that’s being tested. If you are an introvert and hate any aspect of speaking publicly in front of a large number of people, then at least you need to fake-it-till-you-make-it. Though this is most likely the work of senior/lead QA, juniors get to have the baptism of fire too when collaborating with stakeholders and reporting test results.
In summary, getting started in QA is not difficult. But trying to be a GOOD software tester is. After all, we are the last line of defense before software is being released. We are to take the blame if something bad happens and developers get the bragging rights when something good happens (just joking, but jokes are always half-meant).
“Software testers succeed where others fail”
— Anonymous
So, is Software Testing easier than Software Development?
