I can see that in our Bangladesh perspective as the SQA Career path is very new in our IT scope, most of the SQA Engineers are not guided properly or misguided with wrong information. Even most of the Software Engineers think about SQA Engineering as just only a career of a simple Bug Reporter. A person who will be bugging the Development Team with number of valid and invalid Bugs and argu with them when needed.
This is a very usual scenario for where most of the companies don't even bother about Quality Development or even Standardized process. But now a days few of smart companies are comming up with the thought to standardized their own process and quality of service / development for further competion. Competition with different outsourcing neighbour companies or the local outsourcing companies.
Confusion on SQA Career is most of a common scenario in different developing countries. And the career path guidance is even dependent upon the enviroment where most of we SQA Engineers are working. The limitations, scopes everything depends on the environment or the place where we are working.
Here i am posting a reply that Mr. Sajjadul Hakim replied to a SQA Engineer in SQA Bangladesh Yahoo Group. As i see the Reply is very informative for all SQA Engineers (Newbie, Intermediate, Advanced, and Experts) so sharing it to all my Blog Readers.
This is the basic question that was asked ...
On 10/27/06, ****** ****** <***********@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello Dear,
Actually I'm new in this group. Few months ago I
joined in a software company as a Jr. SQA Engr.
Actually I didn't know what is SQA. It was totally new
to me. And lot of my colleagues discouraged me. They
told there is no future of SQA in Bangladesh. I'm
confused. So can you tell me please about the prosect
of SQA in Bangladesh?
Regards
******
SQA Engineer
Replied by Sajjadul Hakim [ Tue Oct 31, 2006 12:35 pm ] as below
There is no easy answer to your question regarding the prospect of SQA career in Bangladesh. I would advice you to go through the following links and make your own judgment. I also want to encourage testers, who already have a career, to comment on their experiences.
The career prospect in Bangladesh was addressed in this group a long time ago, here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sqa_bangladesh/message/44
Recently we tried to address an interesting new role of Testers in Bangladesh, here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/JPGroup/message/1679
Agile testing is becoming quite popular these days, and we addressed that here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sqa_bangladesh/message/376
The issue of choosing the right company for your career was addressed here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sqa_bangladesh/message/360
If you are concerned about training, then a good place to start was mentioned here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/sqa_bangladesh/message/311
Always keep yourself updated about testing and SQA by participating in mailing lists. There is no alternative to this. Here is a list of useful mailing lists depending on your skill level:
Beginner: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SQAtester/
Intermediate: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Software_QA/
Advanced: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/software-testing/
Expert: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/agile-testing/
Regularly read the articles posted at www.stickyminds.com. This is a reliable source. Also, if you can subscribe to "Better Software" magazine, please do so immediately. You may also be eligible for a free subscription.
Always keep on the lookout for books and articles by these veterans, because the things they write are pretty profound:
- Cem Kaner
- James Bach
- Bret Pettichord
- Brian Marick
Always keep in touch with testers in Bangladeshi software companies that are recognized to have a good testing team. Networking is an important part of career growth. A few companies to mention are:
- Metatude
- Relisource
- SoftwarePeople
- Uniqa
Have a thorough knowledge of how testing fits in the SDLC. Have a good understanding of the SDLC.
Always brush up your programming skills. It can only make you better.
Work closely with the developers. Understand the development environment in your project and get acquainted to it, i.e. the IDE, OS, DB, dev process, deployment process etc. It can only make you better.
Software companies are always looking for skilled testers. Don't always rely on Bdjobs for your next job. Networking is a far better tool.
Your salary will depend on your skills, period. You will need to prove yourself.
So much to do...but whats the hurry. Just start the process. Feel free to comment. Thanks.
Regards,
Sajjad
Hope everyone gets help from this post :)
