How should software testers plan their career paths? How to plan your own technical route?
The following are two pictures that I have compiled. You can refer to these two pictures and combine your current technical level, your own personality and strengths to determine your career development direction in advance and plan your next learning content.
1. Technical roadmap:
As can be seen from the figure, there are a lot of things that testers need to master, and we all know what we know about development, but we need to have more global thinking and user thinking than development.
The business knowledge that everyone is responsible for is not put in here. This is based on your own industry and needs to be planned by your own industry.
newcomer stage
I don't know anything, I need to learn 4 types of basic knowledge
- Software Testing Fundamentals
- Computer Fundamentals and Network Fundamentals
- Operating system basics (mainly linux)
- Database Fundamentals (SQL)
1-3 years newcomer stage
Manual testing is no problem, you need to learn automation and master various testing tools
- python or java (choose a language to learn)
- Selenium (Web UI Automation Testing Technology)
- Appnium (APP automation testing technology)
- Interface testing (Postman, SoupUI)
- Packet capture and protocol analysis (Wireshark, Charles, Finder)
- Unit testing technology: (Choose one to learn well, and the others will pass through)
Unittest
Junit
Pytest
TestNG
3-5 years in the middle stage
At this time, you are already the backbone of the test, you may have started to lead troops, and you need to start studying for special tests.
- Performance testing techniques (loadruner, jmeter, locust, mokey)
- Security testing technologies (Nmap, sqlmap, Nessus, APPScan, Burp suite, Kali linux…)
5-7 years old
Begin to learn the software development and testing process, quality assurance method theory; the management route needs to learn project management knowledge and personnel management knowledge, and the technical route needs to learn software architecture methods and theories.
Manage routes:
- Software development process (IPD integrated development, agile development, Devops development)
- Quality assurance methods and theories (how to ensure the quality of each stage)
- Project management knowledge (project scope, schedule, quality, cost control, risk management)
- Personnel management (art of communication, training and cultivation, team atmosphere building, efficiency improvement)
Technical route:
- Learn the concepts of various automation frameworks and your own architecture framework
- Software architecture and design capabilities (high cohesion, low coupling)
- SOA Architecture
- Microservice Framework
- Full link stress test
- Traffic playback
More than 10 years old cannon
After mastering all the above things, it is estimated that I have been doing it for nearly 10 years. Everything is handy, but I still cannot stop learning. Stopping is death, and I will soon face the threshold of programmer 35.
- Technical route:
Keep up with the industry trend, and constantly learn various new ideas, new technologies, new testing methods, new tools, and new processes. - Management line:
It's time to learn philosophical thoughts such as Confucianism, Taoism, University, Doctrine of the Mean, Marxism-Leninism, etc., and advance social psychology; start political struggles, the party will fight against differences, those who follow me will prosper, those who go against me will perish, and those who have money are fathers. If you have milk, you are a mother.
The career planning roadmap
The career development path of software testers is very wide in the IT industry. If you enter, you can do project management, architect, pre-sales, and you can do technical support and operation and maintenance.
The following picture is a general market situation in the current market for each career development direction at each level. You can refer to where you are.
In terms of development paths, different people have different personalities and are suitable for different career development paths. It is recommended that you choose according to your own situation.
Introverted, strong technical ability
It is recommended to take the technical direction, there are two ways to go
- Test Development –> Test Development Architect
- Special test –> performance test/security test
The safety test can be done for a lifetime. It is the safest, but it is also the most tiring. It takes a lot of time and energy to learn and keep the technology in sync.
Introverted, strong business ability
It is recommended to go in the direction of system testing:
- System Test Engineer –> System Design Engineer/or Business Expert
Strong management ability and strong fighting ability (whether introverted or extroverted)
Everyone always thinks that introverts seem to suffer some losses, but this is not the case. As long as you have the means and methods to do things, you can go in the direction of management.
- Test management->project management->department management->become president, marry Bai Fumei, and reach the peak of life
Outgoing, strong business ability
It is recommended to find a way to go in the pre-sales direction. After you have a certain understanding of the product through the test of the product, you can do sales. It will be more powerful than ordinary sales and the income will be higher!
I really can't get along
Either change the company to continue mixing, or go in the direction of after-sales/operation and maintenance. As testers, we know a lot more about products than general technical support and operation and maintenance. There is no problem in taking this road.
Finally, you are welcome to test the old guns and leave a message to express the meaning, and give more pointers and directions to later people.