TL;DR
In one of my previous posts, Do Not Attach To Your Job Role, I wrote about heuristic that your current job role of a software tester is already gone. Based on reactions and comments on this post, I must provide examples and provide more clarifications about this heuristic.
The post received disagreement comments on LinkedIn.
Klara Janova is a context-driven tester that is questioning things that matter in a particular context. She is an AST BBST instructor, peer advisor for Rapid Software Testing applied by James Bach and a member of the editorial board for Tea Time With Testers. She asked the following question:
Why is “Your current job role of a software tester is already gone.” That was the line from the blog post.
Me:
It is done because when you prove yourself as a skilfull software tester, it is expected that your manager will expand your role to something with more responsibility and more skillsets required.
Klara:
Doesn’t this happen only in companies where skilled testers are not appreciated? I don’t see a reason why I or any expert tester would want to go out of the testing role to something else?
Me:
Not to leave testing, but to change testing responsibilities. Remember from BBST what software tester could be responsible for http://testingeducation.org/BBST/foundations/Kaner_pnsqc_ratio_of_testers.pdf (page 15.) This document is 19 years old but still has an extensive list of tester roles.
Klara:
Oh! That seems much more reasonable now. However, I did not get that from the article at all – you basically stated that the testing role is obsolete, and it’s going away for all testers. Changing responsibilities seems totally ok to me, but it doesn’t seem to be consistent with what the article says.
Paul was more straightforward:
complete nonsense with 0 supporting evidence. I guess it’s easy for you to dismiss that which you do not understand.
My assumption that the difference between the testing role and testing craft was evident. That should be more clarified in the original post.
The message of the post is: you should assume that any job role in the world is obsolete. There is so must research to automate work (not just manual). Developer, tester, shipbuilding engineer, you name it, should not sleep on the previous glory. You must invest your time to enhance your skills in order not to become obsolete.
In the end, for passionate software tester must be normal to agree that she/he disagrees with other passionate software testers.
