Hello everybody, long time no see…
It’s been a busy time with a lot going on, but I finally had the time to write this article…
Let me share some of my experiences and insights from moving from testing to the back end.
The body of the
In early 2021, I moved from testing to the back end.
The initial development project was an RPA system whose core function was to automatically help users repeat operations on external channels. The technology used at that time happened to be Selenium, which is the most widely used in UI automation testing. So there is no difficulty in developing or adapting.
However, due to the dependence and instability of external channels in the RPA system, some customers often complain that certain function is unavailable in the group, so we often need to spend time to communicate with customers and solve the problem. This is a huge drain on development time and effort.
Soon after, the company decided to scrap the old RPA system and develop a new one based on external interface calls. The technique used was to touch a lot of Requests in the interface automation test.
After the use of the new system, customer complaints are indeed much less, but we still have a duty list, and special development is needed to solve customers’ problems every day. Remember once a client kept asking until the wee hours of the morning, and I happened to be on duty that day…
Sometimes you wonder if moving to the back end was the right move. During this period of time, the code level is indeed improving at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the technical stack is also expanding at a rapid speed. I have learned & got familiar with the principle and use of Es, Celery, Fastapi and various middleware. But to be honest, it was a lot busier than testing, sacrificing a lot of free time when testing.
Until the recent big demand development, the change of technical architecture in the middle of the project led to a very busy development cycle. In the last week, it was almost late every day, and the project was successfully launched on Saturday.
The next Sunday, I lay on the sofa, thinking about the future career path and development, and felt that it was not worth it to continue to follow the current path. It was not impossible for me to abandon my previous years of testing experience and strive for pure development, but it was not cost-effective.
So at 23:55 p.m., on the email page where I had written my resignation letter, I hit send.
My supervisor and I talked a lot, and he gave me a lot of advice from people who have been there. When I was asked what my future plans were, I said I wanted to go to a bigger test team.
The process went smoothly, and a week later, I was free and finally had time to write this article.
Looking back on this experience, FEELING very deep. I also experienced a lot of very interesting moments and psychological activities:
- A testing colleague I used to bug with in development is now giving me bugs… ;
- Finally understand why developers don’t want to fix bugs and go live for test regression immediately, because the process is really cumbersome… ;
- Very, very afraid of testing bugs on launch day… ;
- When everyone is waiting for you to fix bugs… ;
The last
It was a unique experience, moving from testing to the back end and then deciding to go back to testing.
If I think about it carefully, I have a feeling of seeing a mountain is a mountain, a mountain is not a mountain, a mountain is still a mountain.
Maybe soon I’ll be inspired to write a new article: “What it’s like to Go back to Testing.”
Finally, I hope my experience can inspire you to read this article. Thank you.