akaAT launches Forum for testers, clearing prejudice against testing work

With the goal to help people increase their knowledge of the testing and create a community for testers to have the opportunity to share knowledge, akaAT officially launched a forum at https://forum.akaat.com/. There, testers, in addition to sharing knowledge, asking and answering questions on topics related to the testing industry, can also learn more about Automation Test and have more experience with akaAT tool – an  Automated testing tool developed by FSOFT.

>> Register to use here: https://forum.akaat.com/

Tester at FSOFT in particular and from other companies in general is defined as a person in charge of testing to ensure the best possible software quality before it is released to the market/end-user. Depending on each company and specific job position, the tester profession can be divided into many categories such as QA, QC, Manual Tester, and Automation Tester. But still, they are all roughly called tester.

A tester can be likened to a “silent gatekeeper” because after each successful product and project, it is indispensable to have their mark. However, nowadays there are many prejudices against the industry that make tester’s work sometimes not properly evaluated and recognized. For example, there will be many people who think that “the job of a tester can be done by anyone” or “the job of a tester is low-paying” and “testers is just someone who does post-production work”.

In fact, according to a tester with 10 years of experience in testing, “Testing is a lot more challenging than people think”. To do his job well, a tester must know more than performing tests according to the list of available test cases or just testing on the interface based on the requirements. You need to know how to read and analyze requirements documents to detect errors or omissions early, and how to design effective test cases.

Similarly, the salary of a tester also has undergo certain prejudices. This probably stems from Fresher and Junior positions due to simple job requirements, which result in not so high salary. In fact, a good and experienced tester, especially Automation Tester, can easily earn a salary of 1,000 – 3000 USD/month. And this salary is not low compared to other works.

The prejudice that testers only participate in the final stage, when the software is almost complete, makes people have a wrong view of the role of tester. Because in the product development process, testers can completely participate earlier, in both the “pre-production” and “production” stages. This helps to reduce risks and errors when developing products, saving resources, time and costs.

For example, in the process of making an outsourced product, a tester can help “reduce errors in the product” from reading and analyzing documents by pointing out inconsistencies/irrational points. For example, a document mentions same feature, but on page 1 says A, on page 8 says C.

Those are just simple UX errors but they can greatly affect the ability to attract users to use the system.

Misconceptions about the testing work are affecting more or less the tester community in general and the software industry in particular. It is because not only outsiders, but some testers also hate their work. That sometimes leads to the situation when testers do not want to invest time to hone their knowledge, develop their careers or deal with problems that directly affect product quality.

There is also the prejudice that testers only do the ending part in the whole process, which makes their work separated from the product development process. That makes the relationship between testers and developers become tense. While in fact, testers and developers are “allies”, with the same mission of developing products with the best quality in the shortest time possible.

source akaAT