How did you get started in testing ?

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Permalink Reply by Tony Simms on 14 August 2008 at 9:01am

In 1995 I was the unemployed father of four children, desperate to find a job. I decided I would have to go to college and learn computers (I had decided this as my wife Tanya told me that was what I had to do!) Just before I started my course (and desperately worried about how I would cope) I was on a camping holiday in the midlands. There, in the middle of a field I saw a guy, on a laptop, connected to the internet. The was in 1995 remember! Unheard of. We got chatting, and it turned out he was some big wig at BT.

The conversation turned to what did I do for a living, and I explained I was unemployed, but had a keen interest in computers and was starting a course in a few weeks time. He said he was looking for someone to do some testing on a main frame. He said he didn’t want a developer, he wanted someone a bit different. I told him that as long as the emphasis was on 'different' and not 'bit' I would be very keen to have a go.

A few weeks latter, I attended an interview with one of his managers for the role at BT. The questions went along the lines of,

Q: "So what experience of testing do you have"
A: "Err, none really"

Q: "Do you know CICS"
A " Err, no"

Q: "Have you ever worked on a mainframe or with green screen applications"
A: " Err, not really"

"Ok, you don’t have the right experience, so we cant employ you as a permanent member of staff, but we like your attitude, so we want to give you a three month contract, we cant pay the full rate as you don’t have any experience, so how does £21.50 an hour sound?"


Boy, was I surprised, it was a terrible interview, but here I was being offered a job where in a day I would earn more that I got in a week on the dole! I bit their hand off.

I spent the next week sitting in an office on my own, going through the BT VV&T training manual. It was great, everything very well documented, and I only wish I had kept a copy.

Then it all went bad. The project they wanted me to work on had failed big time, and missed the delivery date. The team were flat out trying to recover, and now, for the first time they had to have a tester from another department dumped on them.

When my boss took me over to meet the team, he and the project manager had a stand up shouting argument about whether or not it was a good idea to take me on, during which time I discovered that I was being touted as an "experienced and capable tester "!

One the argument was over I was given a desk, but no PC or system login. No one spoke to me and I was left alone. I scrounged some documents about the system and started to read. The first time I got up to ask a developer a question, I was told by the team leader that the team was far too busy to talk to me, and that I should email any questions to hi, and he would answer them "when he got time". He didn’t have any time! To be fair to the guys they were under a great deal of pressure.

After a week of this, I had had enough, if they would not let me on the system, I would let my self on I decided, just to have a look. I got into work at 6am one morning, and hunted through desk draws till I found a logon and password. WooWhoooo! I was ready to rock.

The plan was to spend an hour having a look see and then pop out for breakfast, come back at 9am and pretend I had just turned up. Little did I know there was a big ' go, no go ' meeting that morning. I had only been on the system about 15 minutes, just navigating from screen to screen, when I got a "fatal error message", and the screen froze. I quickly logged off and back on again, but this time the system was down. I was in full panic. I had just crashed the system, and guess what! One of the developers came in early. His immediate reaction was 'WTF!' He almost pushed me aside and got to work, all the time firing questions, "what did you do" "what log on did you use" "what did you select". It took about two hours for the system to get back up and running. I was feeling sick.

At that point, I was asked to show them exactly what I had done, and as near as I could remember I went through the whole thing again, the system crashed....... more panic from the developers and talk of a meeting that morning, and hints of doom.

I spent the rest of the morning sitting hidden away in fear. About noon a guy I had not seen before came and asked if I was Tony Simms and could he have a chat in his office. I was ready for the big heave ho. It turned out this was the senior programme manager. He was it appears, "delighted" with my work. It had justified my being there, and what did I need to do the job properly! I was gob smacked.

Within hours I had my own terminal and login, and crashed the system twice more that day, as well as found a number of lesser errors. I never looked back. The team came to value what I did, though with a lot of ribbing and good natured grumbling.

I stayed on the project 18 months, and was in effect paid to learn to be a tester.

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Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on 14 August 2008 at 10:01am

Great story, Tony - thanks for posting it

Follow up question - once you'd got the position, what learning did you do ? Did you go on any courses, read books or was it all done 'on the job' ? Did you have anyone to learn from ?

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Permalink Reply by Tony Simms on 14 August 2008 at 2:14pm

To begin with I used the BT VV&T (Validation, Verification & Testing) course materials. This was great stuff, with explanations, examples, tests, templates and instruction. I would read a chapter, then think how could I use that were I am. Each time I put something into practice the guys on the tam would say, “Wow, that’s great”. They thought it was all my own stuff, but in fact I was just trying out what the BT course material said. I wish I had kept a copy. At Bt I was the only tester on the team, so really did not know what was right or wrong.

I left Bt to get a job as a tester elsewhere, and again, fell on my feet. I got the job as a tester, but in between getting the job and starting, there was some internal politics, and a new test manager from within the company was appointed. The project manager was so anti this guy, he told the directors that the appointment could not go through, as the bank was contractually obliged to appoint me as test manage, as that was what I had agreed at interview (all totally untrue). So I turned up expecting to do some testing, and was told I was test manager of a team of eight. I had no idea what a test manager was supposed to do, so I called a meeting of the team to see what they had to say. They were fantastic, some had been testers for 20 years. They had allsorts of things they wanted to do and introduce, so I just took what they said and got on with putting it in place. These guys made me look so good! I learnt loads and loads from them by pretending to be in charge!

I then started to read books and attend some one day courses on testing. These were great, but no substitute for learning on the job with a good team who seemed to be able to bend any process to fit the needs, find bugs and get the job done. My talent was taking all they had to say, and telling the bosses this is the way it was going to be.

I have never looked back from those days. I now often say to testers I am interviewing, “Your job is to make me look good, what will you do to make me look good?” I believe that my job as a test manager is to give my team all the support tools and resources to make me look good!

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Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on 14 August 2008 at 3:55pm

excellent post - I hope the newbies to testing are reading these

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Permalink Reply by LOLO on 14 August 2008 at 12:28pm

Tony this is classic I tap into your testimony, I am looking to be a tester and would like to work any where in a testing enviorment to learn the skills, @ the moment I am a Benefit Assessment officer and also have a bit of programming knowledge.

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Permalink Reply by Michele Smith on 14 August 2008 at 9:31am

I was an unemployed single mom looking for work. I was unable to find a full-time job in short order. I had decided that I was never again going to do a data entry job in a cubicle, so my choices were limited in the area I lived. I found an advertisement in the local newspaper for a temporary Quality Assurance position. I had no idea what that was, but applied anyway. I had also applied for a Customer Service position in the same company, at the same time.
I got called for both interviews on the same day. The first interview was the average run of the mill type for the CS position. I was then shuttled downstairs for the QA interview. The manager, with his Hawaiian print shirt and jeans, sat down at his desk, pulled out a drawer, put up his feet, and then sat back and proceeded to ask me questions.
Most of the questions had little or nothing to do with computers or skills. A lot of questions like, “What would you do if….?” “How would you handle…...” or “When was the last time….?” He explained to me after the interview what the job would entail. I had no idea what he was talking about. He also talked a lot of his team. This is the part that impressed me the most. He spoke so highly of them and mentioned that if the person he hired would not fit in well with his team, he would not hire them.
I was weirded out by the interview process and the questions, but when I left I found I really desired to work for this department. I felt like I was waiting to be picked for the volleyball team back in high school. The waiting was nerve wracking.
I got hired and during the first two weeks I wondered what I had gotten myself into. But, with the help of a couple of the team members, I was able to begin to understand what the purpose and goal of software testing was all about. I also found that pieces of my personality that had been looked upon as negative my whole life were necessary for this job. Using these parts of my personality (a bit judgmental, critical, analytical, etc.) was part of the reason I fell in love with testing. I am able to be who I fully am. I do not have to internalize pieces of myself that make other people uncomfortable (most of the time ).
I began to ingest as much information about software testing as I could. Books, such as Testing Computer Software (Kaner, Falk, Nguyen) were given to me to read. I did a lot of online research and studied some terminology.
When the end of my temporary position came near, I was offered the opportunity to apply and take a test for a permanent position. I studied everyday for two weeks. Took the test, passed it, and got hired.
I never knew software testing existed before this time, and I am ever so happy for this accidental discovery. In many ways it has enabled me to be myself.

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Permalink Reply by Dylan Lane on 14 August 2008 at 11:02am

I shambled through an Electronic Engineering degree over 5 years in Ireland and was useless at every single subject except power electronics. The telco boom was huge and I heard that a major Nordic one was hiring close to my home town. I was called for interview and was walking through the door of the building when my mobile rang and I found out from my mother that I had gotten terrible results in my finals.

I sat through a generic interview and basically fluffed my lines throughout. I mentioned at the end that I was disappointed and apologised for wasting their time. The interviewer offered me another bite of the cherry if I fancied. I came back a week later and had another interview with a his manager. We talked about rugby and football for an hour and he suddenly asked "Would you be interested in being a tester." I jumped at the chance, not knowing what a tester was and next thing I knew I was employed.

8 years later, I'm still a tester and loving it (sometimes)

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Permalink Reply by Simon Godfrey on 14 August 2008 at 11:54am

Left college in '99 and knew I wanted a job in IT. A friend of mine, who was also looking for an IT job, said the company his brother worked at had a tester role and that we should both apply, so we did, and I got it. Slightly guilty, I accepted and there started a career in software testing. It was a company who did EPOS and it was very unstructured but I enjoyed breaking things, I enjoyed working with computers and I enjoyed problem solving, and 9 years later I'm still in testing and have no plans to move on any time soon!

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Permalink Reply by LOLO on 14 August 2008 at 12:13pm

My ambition now is to be a tester, I am just looking into how to go about it Phil I think that is a classic story well done.

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Permalink Reply by Peter McIntosh on 14 August 2008 at 1:43pm

I was the project leader on the implementation of a cheque account processing module at a local bank here (now defunct), back in the late 80's. We were looking for a way of testing fee and interest calculations, and the tech guys I had on the team came up with a Paradox for DOS/Lotus system that simulated the calculations using the same virtual calendar as the real test system. We could generate expected results from an independent source and use these to test the "real" system.

The system went in, and apart from some major performance issues (we weren't involved in performance testing) it was 100% accurate. My interest continued.

I found I enjoyed devising ways of testing this system, and ended up doing more and more of the same. I moved into testing at this bank and spent the next 6-7 years doing it. From there I dived into a much more technical arena - testing a 4GL development tool at a local R & D lab. Now this was really interesting! It's gone from there to now working quite independently at various sites, testing at all sorts of levels - from managing large teams on large projects, to mentoring new test guys, to doing 1-man projects, manual and automated testing, functional, performance, etc.

It's certainly something I enjoy, and it seems to be something I'm good at - probably caused by my curiosity - what happens if I do this?

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Permalink Reply by Sherilyn Tasker on 17 August 2008 at 8:18pm

My very first job was as a tester ... but a wool tester....nothing to do with computers there!. I saw an ad in the paper for a software tester and I have no idea what made me apply ( I had hardly even used a computer - but figured if I could test wool I could test anything!)..but I did. I didn't get the job originally but found out on the grapevine that the person they did hire couldn't hack it so I tried again and this time got the job. It turned out I had a natural talent for breaking things and have never looked back. This all happened back in the early 90's. In hindsight the company was pretty forward thinking employing a dedicated tester as there are still plenty of companies today who don't.

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Permalink Reply by phil kirkham on 19 August 2008 at 1:02pm

how do you test wool ?? have you been able to use anything from your wool testing experience in your software testing ?

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