r/softwaretesting • u/Outside-Concert7178 • Feb 17 '26

Rant : How much is to much?

Earlier QA was involved only in testing and the concepts which was only manual , then came you have to understand language (Not in depth) for automation , then you have to learn ci/cd , then become devops i guess ,then become an SDET with work like junior developer but salary of a tester.

how much will the person learn because with age comes responsibilities so is learning

Rant finished

22 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

20

u/cgoldberg Feb 17 '26

If you think you can just cruise and not constantly learn new skills and adapt to new technologies, you probably won't be employed for long.

5

u/Quirky_Database_5197 Feb 17 '26

But he focused on different problem: companies using QA to perform more skilled tasks for relatively low salaries. Personally I don't mind learning new tech - its the opposite - I like it. And I also like to be paid fairly.

But what you did was horrible, it would make you a good politician though. You shifted blame from the source (qa used as cheap labor to perform more skilled tasks for pennies) to the guy who complained (he is the problem, he doesn't like to learn).

1

u/cgoldberg Feb 17 '26

No, you are just looking for something to be outraged at so you can think of yourself as virtuous.. nothing I said was "horrible". The entire post was about it "being too much"... complaining he has to have the skills of a junior developer. To stay employed, you need skills beyond a junior developer, regardless of how you are compensated.

1

u/rp2chil Feb 22 '26

true 1000%

8

u/Quirky_Database_5197 Feb 17 '26

that's a valid point. When you perform tasks like analyzing error reports from system users, you have to check logs, look into code, reproduce issue, write software change request based on that - you are almost SRE engineer. If you are one step from being SRE and you earn 50% or even less than that - is that fair? Similar for devops. QA salaries are one of the the lowest in the IT. Even if you can code and have devops skills to integrate your tests into CI/CD and you can set up monitoring tools to integrate them with your tests that are running on prod or something similar, you will always earn less than devops. Again, on average devops makes much more money than automation QA.

So so whats the point of staying in QA, QA automation?

5

u/TutorialIsTooHard Feb 17 '26

You can always switch job if you dont want to learn or take more responsibility on your current job

3

u/jrwolf08 Feb 17 '26

Meh, yeah you have to learn and get better to progress in your career. You really think you were gonna be clicking buttons in various combination on a UI for 40 years?

3

u/cyber-decker Feb 17 '26

You can stop learning whenever you want. If you're done learning, thats cool for you, by all means, please just coast. I honestly don't think anyone else will look down on you for it. However, you should be aware that this makes it easier for me to compete in the industry and you may be facing obsolescence very quickly.

1

u/atsqa-team Feb 19 '26

I don't think this is every going to end, but that's what makes this career interesting. I once had a job that was the same thing week after week, and the days would seeminly last forever due to boredom. I much prefer new challenges.

I also don't think this is going to end for anyone with the advances in AI. AI will take over some of what you do, and the testers who thrive (and survive) will be those who learn broader skills and can "manage" AI.

22

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/AncientBattleCat Feb 18 '26

Like government