How can you become a tester?

Rafi has recently turned 18 and started freelancing as a Tester Work tester. He is a Romanian high-school student and he shares his thoughts on why the field of testing represents a great opportunity for all teens nowadays.

Next to the programmer role, the tester role is one of the most popular in the IT world. But what does a software tester do? I’ll explain right away.

In IT, every role is important and must be fulfilled responsibly. One of these roles is that of the tester. Do you want to know what a software tester does and what you have to do to become a tester?

A tester is a person who checks software for errors, bugs and defects or any problem that may affect the performance of computer software or an application.

But what are the main responsibilities of a tester?

– Understanding an application’s documentation and determining what can be tested

– Creation of a specific documentation containing the steps to follow for testing;

– Effective testing of the application based on the created test cases;

– Reporting errors encountered during testing.

These tasks can be performed by a tester in different teams. Among the most common are mixed teams. These include both programmers and testers. Generally, one tester is assigned to 3 programmers. Thus, there can be one or two testers in a single team.

Depending on the specifics of the company, these teams deal with the development of an own product or provide development services for different applications of different clients. In any case, testers and programmers co-exist. After the developers finish their work, the application is passed to the testers, and when they find a bug, it is passed back to the developers. This process is repeated until the application is ready to reach the end client.

The end customer is the one who feels the testers’ work the most. Thanks to them, he encounters errors much less frequently in the products he uses. Thus, the client has a higher degree of satisfaction.

With each satisfied customer, the level of experience of a tester also increases. With experience comes evolution. A tester can evolve both horizontally and vertically.

“Horizontal evolution occurs when a tester has contact with applications from various fields where all kinds of specific testing techniques can be applied. At the same time, the tester can grow on the hierarchical scale, reaching the function of Tester manager (QA Lead).”

Do you find this role attractive? To be able to do everything a software tester does, you need some important qualities: