Here we again twice in as many days.... This blog is testing specific so is very technical, I have tried dear reader to keep it simple so please bear with me. This post is a bit of a ramble but hang in there.
I was chatting to a colleague from another area of the business today ,and we were discussing my role, and my intention to leave.
My intentions to leave were based on several factors, not least that when I was interviewed, I felt that the business was ready to have testing incorporated into the processes, but didn't know how. I knew how and I am a tester to boot , so the challenge did not scare me.
The manager changed about 6 months in and processes began to change but my role did not change adversely, I was testing a different project. I had implemented documentation to enable testing to take place and identified that requirements documents were required to be produced, in order for development and testing to take place.
We released the project I was working on , on September 19th. Part of my role was to be able to declare this product fit for release. It was not. I told them. It was released anyway.
Testing work on products and projects has been very light since then, and as I am an active person, so decided to overhaul my automated test suites to bring them up to date. There have been the odd jobs, but nothing really test intensive. The irony of this is that the business was releasing a product per month ( every two sprints), it would be released as I started testing it, I would find a tonne of bugs ( no defect resolution meeting) the more serious bugs would be fixed and that was that. The custoemrs may encounter a few days of difficulties and then all of a sudden it will be fixed.
I get Newsfeeds from testing professionals and one I read made me think hard about what it was I was doing. So the question was where will you be in 2 years time? The answer to that having been employed here 16 months was doing exactly the same thing , on the same money and getting more frustrated as the workload lightened even further. The amount of testing work that needs to take place is actually increasing but I am prevented from testing it and so it gets released to the customers defects and all. The only way to get big defects resolved is to identify a different area of the buiness that the defect will effect and then go and demonstrate the defect to them. This gets raised and will get fixed, because the "business" has assigned a prioirity. ( unlike ther tester that they give a good ignoring).
I was initially approached by a recruitment agency before christmas and they asked me some probing questions which made me ask myself , how long can i flog a dead horse? I have an appointment with the CEO on Wednesday, hopefully the next person can make the changes required. ( part of me thinks they actually wont replace me as they think they don't need a tester).
So this time next week I will have 2 and 3/4 hours left to work. Do I regret this job? No, I have learnt alot. ( mostly self taught) I have learnt Protractor from scratch ( which is javascript test tool), am I looking forward to starting my new job? Hell yes! I am nervously excited. The company I am going to, really believe in their people and I am hoping that once in the test team and environment that their agile process and sprint meetings are more structured ( like my previous job, not like this one) and it is everything I hope for and more.
I guess jobs are like dating, ( you have to kiss alot of frogs to find a princess) , this job wasnt a
frog , it was a toad and it has left a nasty taste in my mouth lol. So Spit Spot, the wind has changed and its my turn to move on. ( to another business that needs me and will actually use me properly).
The project manager in me says what lessons have we identified with this experience. Well I was recruited to do a job that only materialized for 6 months, and despite realizing my positive impact on products and services , and recognizing it when it came to the end of the financial year, decided somewhere along the line that the risk of defects at the customer end, was less than a tester finding 20 defects per product and spending the time producing a better quality product than the reputation of the business with its customers.
I have also identified tte fact I miss working in collaboration with other testers in order to grow. I collaberated with some friends in regards to my protractor product and this moved me on massively, enabling me to make it more consistent. ( even with server latency). There was no one to fight testing s corner as I was more focussed on delivery rather than implementation. Its the old adage, everyone thought they knew my job, but when i was not there no-one did it. I suppose I dont feel like my job is valued, and my ability is constantly questioned despite having proven myself repeatedly an efficient tester.
The QA process here is now non existent, good luck with that....
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