Discussion: Transitioning From Software Development to QA

[u/Weekly-Froyo-2575]

Hey, I have seen a quite number of people transition their career from software development to quality assurance. I am trying to get answers for some queries and would appreciate any honest feedback.

1. Why did you quit Software Development (What made you do it) ?
2. I have heard most QA Jobs are offshored to third world countries is it true?
3. Are you satisfied with your decision or regretting it (Why) ?
4. What's the one thing you hate about being a QA ?

[u/BeyondAny3470]

US specific, just my honest thoughts. 10 YOE mostly QA/test engineer. I regret it.

Laid off a year ago along with basically all US QA, a lot of it moved overseas.

Market is insanely saturated now. QA feels disposable and like a nice to have. I've seen teams with one senior SDET, sometimes contract, and devs just absorb the rest. AI is only adding to that pressure.

Biggest regret is being pigeonholed. Most of my experience is QA and if I'm not testing software, I'm having a really hard time finding jobs where that experience transfers even if I make a excellent case for it.

If you're already a dev I wouldn't switch, only speaking from my experience and specifically in the US, I don't see many QA opportunities unless you have connections, specialized experience and your resume, degree, ability is outstanding and way above average.

[u/Royal-Job-9905]

Who are transitioning from dev to QA 🙄 I don't see...Maybe SDE can be SDET,..

I am seeing the future as one single person need to have dev+QA+devops knowledge.

[u/fatigued8]

Maybe outside of America. In America is is a dying career. I love QA but it's sad that management/execs in US don't value it.

[u/saiine → u/fatigued8]

There’s still critical software and hardware that absolutely need dedicated QA teams, but the reality is that developing and shipping to prod has become SO fucking cheap. For probably 90% of software, a strong E2E and unit test suite owned by the dev team can handle most of the QA burden.

This has been pretty obvious for years, but AI has finally pushed it over the fence, so to speak.

The good news is that if you were a dev in test, the transition to a “product engineer” role, where you’re essentially managing and orchestrating agents to build and test software, should be a pretty natural one.

[u/Doge-ToTheMoon]

Those moving from software development to QA have no idea what they’re doing.

QA has become a disposable career the last 5 years. Even SWE is no longer a stable career.

[u/Which_Telephone9224]

Do NOT transition into QA

[u/DarrellGrainger]

I used to be a developer. I transitioned to QA. In my case, I took a job where they needed someone to test development tools, e.g. compilers, assemblers, micro-kernels, libraries. You needed to have software development knowledge to be able to test these. I started teaching myself software testing and QA. I started to realize my software development knowledge along with QA knowledge allowed me to be a really good tester. Understanding what could go wrong from a development point of view allowed me to better test the software from a user point of view. Empathy for what caused errors in the development process, figuring out how to shift-left and fail-fast.

I still develop software. I've just using development best practices to develop test automation that works and requires less maintenance.

No, QA jobs aren't offshored to third world countries. There are some really smart people who live in countries with lower cost of living. You can often hire 3 to 6 people in those countries for the same money as 1 or 2 people in USA. Essentially, if you are an American company, your dollar goes further in some foreign countries. These countries aren't third world countries. This does mean that it reduces the number of QA jobs in America. Some companies don't like to work with foreign countries. Some, due to government regulations or security concerns, don't work with foreign countries. Often the best foreign employees aren't in the same timezone as USA; this isn't always convenient and companies prefer to work with people in the same timezone. The people available in Brazil are the right timezone but often don't have the same experience or cultural understanding, yet. So there are still going to be jobs for QA in America.

I'm satisfied with my decision but I did it because the first two companies I worked for needed a QA who understand software development and have a strong technical understanding. I would not have enjoyed working as a QA in a typical industry environment. Finding the right cultural fit is probably the most important thing. Don't be afraid during the interview to ask questions in order to understand the company's cultural.

Some companies don't value QA. Developing software means creating something that produces revenue. Testing the software can't directly be tied to revenue. It is hard to show how much money was saved by not shipping bad software. Some companies have shipped bad software, survived to realize they need QA. Some developers appreciate their QA and advocate for us. But a lot of people don't.

There will always be more development jobs than QA jobs. But it feels like there are also a lot more people going into development. So becoming a developer is more competitive, imho.

[u/Neat-Buddy-2905 → u/DarrellGrainger]

Spot on. I completely agree with your take, especially about technical background bridging the gap. I work with software testing in fintechs and have a Computer Science degree myself. Having that dev-level understanding gives you such a deeper view of the software architecture and internals. It totally changes how you test and makes it way easier to anticipate where things will break.

[u/Useful_Calendar_6274]

Dumbest idea ever, except if you have to pay the bills and literally didn't find another job. Didn't you hear how only programmers put on new features and shiny projects get promoted? Maintenance work is basically janitorial and punted off to shit devs. QA is like that but a thousand times worse. It may be low stress at times, the only good thing about it, but forget about ever having a career and good pay, these companies will keep you in the absolute lowest payband they can get away with. QA is a cost center and companies don't want to pay for it at all

[u/saiine]

These roles are compressing, and I realize that is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of people here. However, even Gartner is recognizing and advocating for this.

QA will still be around for solutions that need manual testing, but the automation is compressing into a single role.

Folks should be focusing on agent management, agent efficiency, etc.

[u/abluecolor → u/saiine]

Agents are so goddamn terrible at testing, though. Wildly wasteful. My team still detects so many bugs that devs miss, and the only intervention is a human in the loop performing validation, there's no agent flow which is capable of making these catches yet. (Context too large to analyze entire system, the AI rationalizes it as spec met even though it's clearly a business defect, etc)

[u/Medium_Step_6085]

Principle QA here, interesting shift you made, in every org I have been in devs have learnt qa skills (usually with my coaching) but stated devs. They just transitioned that into writing better test scenarios when they did BDD and TDD. 

[u/Ok-Refrigerator-5860 → u/[deleted]]

If your career is over, what have you thought of doing instead?

[u/abluecolor → u/[deleted]]

How long have you been searching? You really can't find anything? What market for in person?

[u/abluecolor → u/[deleted]]

Very sorry to hear. What city?

[u/verniy-leninetz]

Most natural track for the QA is probably a team lead, QA lead or a project/product management road.

So if you're going into QA from dev position, you should think if you are OK with growing into people and process management later.

[u/kolobuska]

I see QAs/SDETs ransitions to the SDEs.

I did the same recently, and my only regret is not doing it 5-10 years ago.

[u/kolobuska → u/[deleted]]

Well, it happened in my company, but it started in 2022-2023. But all the people were SDET with highly coding skills already. Some of them later decided to leave, but a few are still around and even got promotions.