Professional planning for testers--sorting and labeling

Different types of software companies, the degree of emphasis on testing work is also very different. It is recommended that testers select some companies that have continued to develop their business. Do project East a hammer West a good company, is not the need for high-quality testing, they need is to hand over the software as soon as possible, but can not calm down the heart to think, how to do the quality. It takes quite a lot of risk to choose a company like this.

Next, talk about the topic, if you choose the test, how can from the Test team to stand out from it. The concept of "management and technology" is often put forward, and the concept is too abstract to help us clarify our thinking. There is a point of view that testing to learn to develop technology, this also does not mention the key point. I think there are two of the professional development of testers, in other words, software companies need testers who have both abilities. Note that these two capabilities do not conflict with each other.

first, continuously improve the testing strategy, improve testing efficiency and quality at present, many companies are testing or manual black box testing, testing strategy is relatively single, many students may have encountered in the writing test plan, test strategy that chapter do not know what to write questions.   If you only do black box test, there will be an insurmountable gap on the way to improve the quality of the test.   Improving the testing strategy requires mastering the development technology, but the technology is only the necessary condition, the more important ability is to be able to plan one thing systematically, analyze the problem in the work, choose the most effective solution, and finally realize a common improvement goal with everyone. Improving your test strategy generally takes into account the following directions: unit Testing (white box and gray box), automated testing, performance testing, security testing, usability testing, and more.   Of course, the specific goal of improvement, according to the different business, choose the right direction. However, many of the Test team's human resources are more nervous, can not put too many people to improve the testing strategy, it is very good to solve this contradiction is very important. What the company needs is to be able to work out effective improvement plans based on the current situation of the testing team and to lead people to improve the efficiency of the test.

second, to be able to "eat" business, control the quality of business testingIt needs to be explained that "eat" business is not synonymous with familiarity with business. For testing work, familiar with the business is very important, the majority of testers after induction, will start from understanding the business, and gradually grasp the product line business rules.   However, when a tester becomes familiar with a business (becoming a business expert), the problem arises: he/she may be stuck in the test execution of the business, unable to release, and doing similar work for several years. Even with the addition of new testing staff, business experts are not feeling much easier.   On the one hand, the business experts to the new round of training, to answer their work problems, training costs are very high; on the other hand, business experts do not trust the important functions to the new test, must be tested by themselves, professional development of business professionals have a more embarrassing situation. From this we put forward the "eat" business concept, it and familiar with the business is the biggest difference is that testers eat a business, you can complete the test work to another tester to do, but also to ensure the quality of the test. And to achieve this goal, the key is the document.   We need to do business as a unit, perfect test cases, business precipitation, test design, test scripts and other documents, and, more importantly, to organize these fragmented documents into a systematic document system. Note that eating business does not mean writing a very complete set of documents for this business unit, but building a basic, sustainably maintained document System. Business experts after a business, you can give the business to others, and then start to eat a second, while focusing on the original business document refinement process.   In this way, a tester who eats business ability can manage more business needs and testers, and as he/she contacts more and more business, the working perspective will gradually improve, becoming a system-level test engineer and team leader. To design This document system, also need a better system design capabilities, of course, the most important is perseverance. In addition, the documentation system for each business unit can be passed on to a batch of testers, and everyone will be able to maintain and improve it, and learn a lot from it.
"This is mainly about the two kinds of ability that testers should improve, but the career planning of testers, only one sentence: the future development of technical, or management type." 】

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"The following article gives a system of growth and knowledge that needs to be mastered, but I think it is a very unitary system and the metrics may not apply to any company." But this knowledge is certainly good to hold. 】

Primary test Engineer-entry-level with some manual testing experience, developing test scripts and getting familiar with test life cycle and testing techniques;
Test Engineer-can independently write automated test scripts and take the lead in the early stages of test programming, further expanding the skills of programming languages, operating systems, networks, and databases (but specifically what should be). ）
Advanced Test Engineer-assists in developing or maintaining test or programming standards and processes, is responsible for peer review, and is able to guide junior test engineers;
Team leader–– generally has about 5 years work experience, is responsible for managing a small group. Responsible for scheduling, work scale/cost estimation, delivery of products according to schedule and budget target, responsible for developing technical methods, providing support and demo to users;
Test Manager-capable of serving as the entire development lifecycle business in the test area, providing user interaction and a wide range of presentations, responsible for project cost, schedule, planning, and division of labor;
Planning manager-With years of experience in development and support (Test/quality assurance) activities, management of a number of projects and the entire development lifecycle, responsible for the project direction and profit and loss responsibility. "This is a management-oriented route."
Career planning:

1. The first stage, learn the automated testing tools, learn to write scripts;
2. Second stage, learn to write test plans, test scenarios, test cases;
3. The third stage, learning configuration management, version control, project management, bug management;
4. Phase IV, turn to be a manager.



Technical DirectionJust go down the road of test development. Eventually becoming a technical Montana, becoming a core technician in a company
This direction to the accumulation of technology requirements of the highest, suitable for those who have no interest in management, want to concentrate on technology. To go down this road, you need to constantly accumulate in the development capacity, and also requires a certain breadth of knowledge and a unique understanding of the occupation.
Management direction, work a few years later to the Test manager, the future development of a variety of, Quality Director \ Project manager and so on
Some people say that management does not need technology, but did not think of a technical work, they will not be how to manage others, of course, there are exceptions, some managers are indeed relying on their own personality charm to make a team healthy development. But that's a very small number. Most of the test managers also need to accumulate a certain amount of technology. And for all work must be more familiar with, black and white box, automation, performance, use case design, configuration management, planning, design and so on, and also to adjust the work of the team within the atmosphere, the establishment of appropriate incentive mechanism, as a manager is never more than a technician needs to accumulate less things.

andProcess ControlProbably the least chosen, QA is not pleasing, and eventually become a generation of ultimate Process Control consultant
This kind of work requires a lot of patience and self-confidence, need to work in the process control aspects have their own understanding, need to be familiar with the theory. It's a great test of human perseverance.
Other, and do a use case to achieve extreme, do functional testing to do extremely, do the user experience to do so, and so on, in short, all kinds of development direction of the need to strive to adhere to any one direction to do a good job.

If you area tester or a senior tester who is interested in managing development,Then the following points need to be strengthened:
1. The preparation of the test plan (to combine the test project to control and determine the test personnel, equipment and time to manage the test time)
2. Be familiar with bug tracking tools and software testing process. (such as: TD, Bugzilla, CQ, etc.)
3. Be familiar with configuration management tools. (such as: CVS, VSS, etc.)
4. Be familiar with automation tools. (For example: WinRunner, QTP, Robot, RFT, automation, etc., can write code in conjunction with the recorded script)
5. Be familiar with the pressure and performance testing tools. (For example: LoadRunner, Webload, silkperformance, etc., can combine the relevant data, analyze the performance bottleneck)
6. Be familiar with or proficient in a language. (For example: Java, C + +)
7. Be familiar with the database. (For example: Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL)
8. Be familiar with the mainstream operating system. (For example: HP Unix, IBM AIX, Sun Solaris, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Windows)
9. Fluent in English and foreigners to communicate and email.
10. Strong language skills, express the problem clearly.
11. Strong communication skills, able to work with superior/Development manager to achieve test-related/bug issues.
12. The ability to learn technology is strong, can quickly start a new technology.
13. Be willing to communicate with others.

"I think the following is not very reliable, but you can see"
Primary test Engineer: Just out of college or just from some training institutions out of the trainees, before or have little experience in testing, this stage is mainly to master the most basic test methods, test plans, test cases, test reports, environmental structures and so on. In the Shanghai area of Beijing, this position is generally paid between 2000-5000.
Intermediate Test Engineer: A test engineer who has worked for more than 2-3 years, can independently develop a test plan, write test cases, guide the primary test engineer, etc. In the Shanghai area of Beijing, this position is generally paid between 4000-6000. To achieve the level of intermediate test engineer, the future development can exist in a variety of directions:
--"Management direction:
Test team leader: The following teams are generally 5, able to undertake 2-3 smaller projects (program code below 5000 lines) or 1 medium and large projects (program code in 5000 lines-25000 lines). Beijing Shanghai, the position is generally more than 5000 salary, good over million.
------------"Test Manager: Can manage a number of small test teams, be able to undertake multiple medium and larger project testing, and with at least 1 large projects (program code at 25000 lines) of the test management capabilities. The salary of this position is generally over million, the annual salary two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand normal.
------------Quality Manager/project management: Stepping out of the test to focus on the process. SQA treatment difference is relatively large, but more than 2 years of testing or development experience of more than 5000 people should be no problem, good also over million.
--"Technical direction:
White box test: The developer turned over more, the general technical to at least reach the level of technical managers. Better treatment, generally more than 7k, a good annual salary of two hundred thousand or three hundred thousand.
Automatic Test direction: Proficiency in the use of more than one automated testing tools, do a good treatment and white box test a spell, generally more than 6k, but recently learned more people, the treatment of depreciation may be relatively fast.
Test Analyst/Technical Director: The primary responsibility is to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the test results of the system, such as defect analysis, performance analysis, etc. Not only the test technical ability is strong, but also has the database, the operating system and so on many aspects technical knowledge. That's a general treat.
Industry testing experts: The rare for the expensive, over million general problem is not big.
Experienced some of these stages, probably in the 35-year-old, career development on the basic bottleneck, at this time as long as the mix is not very poor income generally can be counted on the middle class, days may still be more depressed, after the direction may have to do training, consulting, their own start-up companies.


have been in the Test line for five or six years, talk about your own plans and some ideas:
One, own plan:
After a few years, accumulated a number of industry experience (E-COMMERCE, telecommunications industry) and management experience (refers to the test management), after all, girls, so many years have been constantly learning all kinds of technology, always afraid of backwardness. The time is long, the feeling is still very tired, feel than do development tired. So the future direction is: Take the management route. (Of course this line is not good to go, but after 2 years of management, feeling in this area has a certain ability, as long as efforts will certainly succeed)
Do a good job of testing: initiative strong, confident, able to listen to accept other people's opinions.
Second, for the test novice, how to join, need to have the knowledge and ability
1, the basic theory of testing knowledge, know what the test process is. Test common documents and how to write them. What are the test methods?
Methods: Go to some test forums (such as: 51testing, test times, 3atesting, test nets, etc.) to find some information to learn. Or buy some of the test books. You can also participate in test training.
2, to be familiar with or proficient in a language. (For example: Java, C++,.net,vb,pb,dephi), to be able to read code. Of course it's better to write code independently.
Method: To learn a more popular language, because time is limited can not learn a lot of development language. The process of learning must give their own time plan, and language is the best combination of examples to learn, the main learning design ideas.

3. Be familiar with bug tracking tools. (such as: TD, Bugzilla, CQ, etc.), learning a can, mainly to understand the process of the bug is what, how to manage.
Methods: To look at the information on the Internet, loading tools to apply.
4. Be familiar with configuration management tools. (such as CVS, VSS, etc.), one can, of course, if there is time, 2 kinds of tools will be better.
5. Proficient in Office series tools, strong typesetting ability. The documentation is often written in the test, so this is a strong aspect.
6, to be familiar with the database. (For example: Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL), you can master a database.
7, to be familiar with the mainstream operating system. (For example: Red Hat Linux, Windows)
8, need to enhance the capacity:
Strong learning ability, strong ability to express, patient, careful, confident, responsible, able to work under pressure, strong communication skills.
All these, are need to work hard, can not do surface Kung fu, in that case, even if you do, you will find yourself to learn a lot of things.
Third, after entering the profession, must study the knowledge and the ability:
1, the Company's culture and system
2, familiar with the business, this piece is very important, need to be treated seriously.
3, familiar with the company's development process and testing process.
4, after the business is familiar with, will oneself learned the knowledge to apply in the actual work. Improve your level of testing.
5, develop their own communication skills, and business-related people can be very good communication.
6, work encountered problems and solutions to timely summary of the finishing.
7, for the company's projects or products to choose the appropriate automated testing tools to help companies improve testing efficiency.
This phase is: familiar with the business, familiar with the workflow
Four, after six months--1 years, to learn the knowledge and ability
1 Improve the skills of writing use cases.
2 familiar with a unit testing tool. (based on the development language used by the company's project or product)
If the company has always been a developer to do, skip.
3 familiar with one or two kinds of automation tools. (Functional class and performance class, such as: Wr,qtp,lr,robot, etc.)
Suggestion: Learn the tool words, must combine the actual project, this learns quickly and the effect is better.
4 familiar with a test management tool.
(hehe, for later do Test Manager plan)
5 Understand the new business, the development of new technologies.
The focus of this phase is to improve the level of writing use cases and the use of tools.
Five years later, believe that they have their own goals.
1 If you do a full-time performance test engineer: Proficient in a performance testing tool, and can analyze the bottleneck. (This I did not do) (these need to improve a wide range of knowledge: server, middleware, development, database, etc.)
2 If you are an automated test engineer, proficient in an automated tool, and can write scripts independently to understand some of the latest automated testing techniques.
3) Test Manager. (Technology + Management), which is weak to make up which piece. Listen to other people's opinions and improve their own shortcomings.
No matter what you do, you must have a goal. If you have a goal, you will stick to it. Otherwise.....