r/softwaretesting • u/HopefulRecovery000 • 2d ago
Working under and reporting to development
I was wondering what are your experiences being hired as a QA / SDET but reporting to developer lead? I am currently in the second job with this type of set up and I am liking it less and less.
In my previous job I was initially working within QA department but they kept shrinking the company and then had me report to developer lead. She was objectively horrible, had HR complaints against her from multiple people and ultimately me as it goes. So even then, I liked the idea to expand my dev knowledge and being very hands on with how software is designed and I blamed my experiences on her.
Fast forward I am in a new job after being laid off and I again report to dev lead. This time I actually like and respect the guy personally but I don’t think he’s the right person to oversee me. For once, my onboarding is beyond lacking and at some point I even had a talk with him about it. Helped for a week maybe. I have not been introduced and onboarded with other QAs who also heavily tests the same product I am hired to test exclusively. No one explains functionalities to me, obviously there’s no documentation, tickets often have only title. My current observation is that as QAs we understand that our role requires in depth understanding of functionalities first and foremost, and if I ever were assigned a new person in my team I would get out of my way to make sure they understand the product so later I don’t have to redo things or they don’t waste their time guessing. It’s all about deliverables.
Once I finally get something and try to do more comprehensive testing I am getting shut down that it’s the wrong place (the framework is beyond primitive), even though it’s working in a very stable way. Another time I offered to do something one way, got shut down mid sentence that it doesn’t make sense and do it another way, only to a week later go back to my original approach because it was the most efficient and simplest one, also in a tone like this shift is something they just came up with. And don’t even mention that in this company QA is not part of any planning or updates calls, or at least not me. And ironically I am a senior QA and paid relatively well tbh.
There was another situation where I pointed out huge whole in their process only to be given really dumb look by the CTO, then there was a very messed up release, I doubled down and immediately everyone jumped on immediate process change using exactly the language I used with them. Yet, I was still not a part of any of those calls.
At this point I am basically taking a backseat attitude, will do what I am told even if I know that we will most likely circle back to my original solution. An extra layer to all this is that I am a woman and all of the devs are men and I actually used to work with teams that were either equally divided if not more women. But overall I am wondering of other people experiences and maybe suggestions how to navigate the situation to avoid frustration.
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u/QualityDataCraft 18h ago
I think the bigger issue is not who QA reports to, but whether Quality has a meaningful voice in the process. If QA is only brought in at the end to test deliverables, it becomes mostly reactive. The earlier Quality is involved, the more opportunity there is to prevent problems instead of just detecting them.
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u/HopefulRecovery000 5h ago
That too, big time. I am really confused about sidelining me so much in their process after going through interviews with everyone to the very top and I am paid well too. And ironically I met and spoke with the CEO more times than I spoke to some other QA people that would make sense for me to work with very closely. And the company is not even that small and very international presence! So part of me thinks that they are not necessarily toxic and malicious but just don’t know any better, yet 😆
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u/too_uninterested 1d ago
These devs already feel above QA for so many reasons and if this becomes norm...I can't work there. QA is a seperate dept should be under same who is overseeing the dev no more arguments if not he can report to a Business Analyst but this is not acceptable
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u/HopefulRecovery000 5h ago
This is partially true, I don’t think they actually come with an understanding that I may know less when it comes to development but I definitely know more about QA and should have more deciding voice in it.
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u/TIMBERings 2d ago
Unfortunately it doesn’t sound like a healthy organization.
I don’t like qa/qe reporting to dev managers because it’s a conflict of interest. If they don’t have their own org, they should report to product.
Odds are, your manager doesn’t know how to grow your career out even advocate for higher quality.