The first software test engineers, what are they doing now? The testing industry has been developing for nearly 20 years from its inception, and the practitioners in the earlier years have now reached the threshold of “no doubt”. However, most people still choose to exert their own light and heat in the testing position.
Compared with the age tolerance of the IT industry in foreign countries, the requirements are much stricter in China. “You will be eliminated at 35” has become a popular meme among testers.
Some people say that testers are young people
One person said: There is so much overtime in the IT industry, how can we afford to be older? Another said: Middle-aged people must be laid off
…
But is this really the case? Can you work as a software test engineer for life?
01 Obstacles to progress is anxiety in Zhihu “how old can software testing do” under the question, xiaobi statistics of everyone’s answers, regarding whether can do this question for a long time, the proportion of people in favor of and against is 7:3. Most of the reasons given by the opponents are that the Internet is developing too fast, and they fear that they will be eliminated as they grow older because their physical fitness and learning ability cannot keep up with the technological development speed. In the anxiety list of the industry, the IT industry occupies the first position. Today, with gradually serious internal volume, the anxiety of entering the industry has become a common phenomenon. In the fast-paced Internet era, “trafficking anxiety” has become a means of survival for many people, many marketing enterprises, today they issued a “30 is still at the grass-roots level, you can not be saved.” And tomorrow, “How did he make $100 a year at 25?”
If we only need to compare with one or two “other people’s children” when we grow up, we need to face all “other people’s children”, the information age will pile up all the successful cases in front of you.
I interviewed a number of programmers and found that many of them are still in their early 20s and are worried about losing their jobs after they turn 30.
Xiao Wang is just 25 years old this year. He graduated from a 211 computer major with a master’s degree and is now working at Huawei. Normally, his first half of life has been a “textbook template” envied by countless people, but after talking with him, he found that anxiety is filling his life. Colleagues are excellent and hard, a careless was eliminated. Working intensity is very big, every day overtime home also need to see the technical paste, afraid to catch up with the pace of technology update.
“What I worry about most is whether I will be eliminated after I turn 30.” There was a trace of worry on the young man’s face as he talked about the future. “Let’s move into management first.”
In the face of whether he can do this industry for a lifetime, he thought about it again and again and left this sentence. A lot of people think that the reason why you can’t stay in the testing industry is “What if I can’t keep up with the IT industry?” “, “I heard people say that if I can’t climb into management by the age of 35…” Most of this comes from guesswork. Most of the time, the source of our anxiety lies in an immutable past and an uncontrollable future. And it’s that anxiety that makes us deny our job prospects.
The majority of Zhihu netizens agree, and many of them express the view that whether they want to or not depends mainly on themselves. Professor Zheng Renjie of Tsinghua University, a famous software testing expert, once said: software testing engineer is a more popular occupation as the older you get. This sentence indicates that software testing is relatively stable, there is no age limit, with the increase of project experience and in-depth understanding of the industry background, will become more and more popular. Prior to this, because testers do not develop software and may not be required in small companies, the prospects for testing seem less promising to the average person. But as users demand more and more software quality, it has become a trend for companies large and small to have dedicated testers. So the demand for testers is also increasing, and the pay is rising.
So in terms of industry prospects, do not worry about whether you can do this for a lifetime. For most people are worried about the age of this point, xiaobian interviewed the company has been in the business for more than 10 years Teacher Ma. In Teacher Ma’s opinion, the experienced old testers in the team have a great impact on the progress and efficiency of the project. “Sometimes the old people can understand the bugs that the new people can’t detect at a glance.” So when recruiting team members, he does not think age is a big limit, and the key to judge whether to hire is technical level. When it comes to his future, ma, a 35-year-old teacher, said he is more worried about being replaced by AI than being eliminated artificially.
We have to admit that the average age of technical teams in many Internet companies is very young. If you want to take IT industry as a lifelong career practitioner, the sense of crisis will be stronger than that of traditional industries. In the eyes of many team leaders, There is no problem with being a programmer as a lifelong industry, but it is not appropriate to be a pure testing post as a long-term career development direction.
Whether choosing a technical path or a management path, testers should plan themselves to a certain point so that they are not obsolete.
1) technical route Primary test engineer to intermediate test engineer, senior test engineer – performance test engineer to test automation engineer, test development architects to safety test engineer, performance tuning engineer Why there will be more old more popular testing industry that, in the industry, the value of experience is very important, In the face of all kinds of strange bugs, the strategies and handling methods of experienced testers are much more mature than those of novices. Just like the game, the hero’s level needs to reach a certain level before he can step into the next level. When the tester steps into the threshold of 35, he needs to reach the level of test development architect. In short, this stage is not limited to the single field of testing. Development is often compared with testing, and some people think that development is more promising than testing. In fact, it is not. When test engineers reach the level of test automation engineer and test development architect, they can completely replace development and change the quality of the whole project through technical means. However, if you are not technically advanced by the time you reach 35, the chance of being eliminated is 80%. After all, at that time, your physical strength and learning ability are somewhat limited compared with that of young people. So if you want to take the technical route and stay in this industry, the first thing you have to remember is that you can’t stop learning.
2) management route test engineer to test team leader to qa supervisor, manager, director of test to department manager The requirement of transformation from technology to management, the biggest is communication and coordination ability, it is also necessary conditions under which the management, only when the team recognized, is personal to get approval. And this management is not all about people management, but also about project quality management. Want to control the quality, you need to have good technical knowledge (business) power, we all know that the test surface to the requirement of knowledge is very wide, strategy, method, be short of one cannot, tools, everyone can’t please everyone at the beginning, but must have their own good at field, whether automated testing, performance testing, security testing, or master of business, Find your strengths and go vertical and specify the direction for horizontal improvement.
Comprehensive knowledge of the business enables you to develop the most appropriate strategies, choose the best methods and tools to achieve efficiency and effectiveness when running projects. Therefore, compared with the technical route, the management route requires more communication and coordination skills. After all, only a few people in a team can manage the management level. Of course, this has a certain relationship with their personality, and partners can also take this as a starting point to see which route they are more suitable for.
As you get older, you’ll realize that the new guy has a day’s work to do and you can do it in two hours. It’s true that older testers are less likely to find work than younger people, because there are always more jobs at the bottom, and as you go up the pyramid, there are fewer jobs. So for those who regard testing as a lifelong career, whether they choose the technical route or the management route, only to make themselves stronger is the absolute truth. I’ve seen countless 40+ testers. Worrying about age doesn’t make any sense. So, if you make a decision, keep moving forward, find a direction that reflects your value, hold on to it, and cherish it.
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