Reprinted from Microservice Quality Assurance 20 Lecture by Mr. Jiamu
How to understand "core competitiveness"?
Before explaining competitiveness, let's look at what ability is. Ability refers to the quality (such as skills, knowledge, experience and behavior, etc.) reflected by a person to complete a goal or task. The explanation implies that "ability is an absolute value (positive number)", which seems more academic, but in actual work, relative values are meaningful: in some respects, when you have some qualities, while others do not When you have it, it means that you have the corresponding competitiveness. That is to say, competitiveness refers to the part of the ability that is superior to others. Of course, the scope of reference can be as large as everyone, practitioners in an industry, or as small as employees of a company, or even a few people.
For example, whether it is a job description on a recruitment website or a resume, there are almost no such requirements and ability descriptions as "proficient in using the Windows operating system, proficient in the use of the Android system, and proficient in the use of the iOS system". Because these abilities are the bottom line and the foundation of the foundation. They should be possessed by all testers, and even almost become the basic skills of netizens. In other words, with these capabilities, there is no advantage in the testing industry. But linux is different, it often appears in the skill requirements of testing positions. Job seekers also often directly reflect the fact that they are familiar with linux in their resumes, even if they are not too familiar, they will show that they know something. This means that proficient use of the Linux operating system, or even simple use, is still scarce among the tester group and has a certain degree of competitiveness.
Through this phenomenon, we can draw a conclusion that when learning any knowledge and skills, don't be afraid of high thresholds and high learning costs, because high thresholds are also a real good thing. If the threshold is low and others can easily obtain and learn from it, then you will have little competitiveness. A high threshold (in fact, in most cases, it just looks like a high threshold), means that many people will be excluded from the threshold, and then you will gain enough competitiveness. To sum up, when cultivating core skills and abilities, we should try our best to choose those with thresholds and scarcity, so that we can have a lasting competitive advantage, which is the core competitiveness.
Three Stages of Core Competence
We know that different jobs and tasks require different core competencies, so the core competitiveness is also different. The entry threshold of QA is relatively low, which is also the main reason for the panic and anxiety of the QA group. This group involves a wide range of technical aspects and skill stacks, so the entire career path is relatively rich. You can take the technical route, the management route, or switch to a similar position.
Technical route: There are business test experts, agile test experts, special test technology experts, test development experts, R&D efficiency experts, test architects, etc.
Management route: You can start from the position of test team leader, test manager, project test leader, and test director.
If you change careers, you can also go to a direction where you have more daily dealings, such as project managers, product managers, or R&D engineers.
Regardless of which direction you are engaged in, career development always goes through three stages: entry, advanced, and advanced. I will also explain the core competitiveness of QA from these three stages.
(1) Getting started: expanding knowledge boundaries and consolidating basic skills
This stage is mainly suitable for testers who have just entered the industry, and the general testing experience is less than 3 years. At this stage, you need to practice and test the basic skills hard, and have a certain advantage in the breadth of knowledge. Because you have no experience, it is suitable to use your studious attitude, subjective initiative, learning ability and other strengths to make up for your project experience and testing experience.
At this stage, you can learn more basic computer knowledge, test theoretical knowledge, etc. In the actual test work, the test tasks undertaken are completed through one's own subjective initiative and learning ability. Basic computer knowledge includes but not limited to the following.
Operating system: Familiar with the differences between the operating system environment and its major system versions, such as Linux/Unix/Windows/iOS/Android and other systems.
Network protocols: proficient in network protocols and their characteristics, such as TCP/IP, HTTP, etc., and can use packet capture tools (Fiddler/Wireshark/Tcpdump/Charles, etc.).
Database: including relational database technology (MySQL, Oracle, etc.) and non-relational database technology (NoSQL).
Development languages and frameworks: Proficient in development languages and frameworks, compiling, packaging and publishing operations, such as Java and Jetty, Objective-C and Android.
Proficiency in using CI/CD pipeline tools, etc.
Have a basic understanding of the following knowledge: website architecture, microservice architecture, container technology, middleware, load balancing, big data, cloud computing, etc.
Basic knowledge of testing includes but is not limited to: proficiency in software life cycle knowledge, software development models, static and dynamic testing methods, etc.
In addition, as a newcomer, you must give full play to your "novice" advantages, that is, at this stage, you are sensitive and curious about new things, good at asking questions related to quality or process, and not easy to think in a stereotyped way. Therefore, on the contrary, many detailed problems can be found, whether it is the team, R&D process or business.
(2) Advanced: expand the depth of knowledge and grasp the core value
After you have a certain amount of testing experience and project experience, you need to expand your knowledge depth in a targeted manner, and build core competitiveness based on your own position, so that the value of QA can be more fully reflected.
Take the two most common testing job titles (Business Test Engineer and Test Development Engineer).
Business test engineer: test strategy summary ability, test plan design ability, test case design ability, exploratory test thinking, defect analysis ability, automated testing technology, etc. are its core competitiveness.
Test development engineer: test system requirements analysis ability, technical knowledge system, platform design, R & D and implementation capabilities are its core competitiveness.
Common soft skills for both include project management, learning ability, problem analysis and positioning, etc. Common professional capabilities include defect management, process improvement, usability testing, quality measurement and operations, etc.
After passing the entry stage, QA needs to be able to lead the testing work of a business direction and assist in the construction of a quality assurance system, which also reflects the core value of the QA team.
The core value of QA is to ensure the quality of business in an all-round way. Here are the key changes that need to be changed in the advanced stage.
Prevent problems, not just spot them
Test execution can only discover existing problems as much as possible, and preventing problems is the best policy. Then it is necessary to conduct quality analysis based on the existing various data. Such as defect summary and cause analysis, in order to form a mechanism to avoid problems; introduce various tools to avoid problems, such as static code inspection, branch specification inspection, etc.; online monitoring, quickly find problems and respond in a timely manner.
Improve delivery quality, not just find more bugs
The most advanced way should be to improve one's own ability, find more problems, and continue to improve the quality of the process; quality is the responsibility of the entire team, and QA must first be a good person to ensure that any QA is working hard to improve its own test quality , and then improve the quality of the entire production and research process, and finally improve the quality of delivery;
Focus on the good or bad of the effect, not just the right or wrong of logic
do the right thing, not just the right thing
How to ensure that the developed products meet the real needs of users requires constant questioning in the process, what pain points are we solving for users, whether it is a false demand, and so on. First of all, QA needs to keep asking all members the above questions throughout the project process to ensure that the team is developing the product required by the customer, with logical analysis, rather than just a decision made by patting their heads.
(3) High level: building a personal brand
At the advanced stage of career, you need to build your own personal brand, which is commonly referred to as a professional label. For example, the nickname of Liangshan hero is a kind of label. In the field of testing, when you mention Zongshi, you know that he is good at Selenium, and when you mention Sihan, you think of TesterHome, Mobile Internet Test and Development Conference, etc. This is the embodiment of personal brand.
To build a personal brand, it is recommended to use the following methods.
Build personal core skills
Look inward: As a kind of technical engineer, testers must have a core skill of housekeeping. This is a skill that needs to be accumulated and honed for a long time. skill threshold. What you need to do is to discover and focus on the field you are best at, and then focus on this field, constantly improve and optimize your ability, and become an expert in this field.
Look outwards: keep exploring outwards, see how the industry, well-known companies, and other giants are practicing, absorb the essence, and then find your own gaps, learn from each other's strengths, and continue to improve.
Precipitate, share, communicate
First of all, when polishing your core competitiveness, you must use words to settle it down.
Secondly, create opportunities to share and communicate with others, so that you can clarify what you are doing or thinking, and then adjust your thinking and methodology according to the positive and negative feedback of others.
QA Frequently Asked Questions about Building Core Competence
QA There are also many obstacles and resistances on the way to building personal core competitiveness, which you can identify and avoid in advance.
QA work is full of a lot of repetitive work, so I can't release myself from the busy work. After a few years, it is still mediocre. Therefore, when there is a large amount of repetitive work, you must be very vigilant. You should first invest your energy and time to break the vicious circle, gradually replace the repetitive work with local small improvements, and finally reverse the situation.
There are too many career fields of QA. It is easy for a QA to accumulate multiple skills at the same time with little difference. This situation is relatively common. It is recommended to weigh the final direction in the following ways: you are interested in it, and you have a promising future.
The core competitiveness is strongly bound to the company or business. Once you leave or change, the core competitiveness will be greatly weakened. This situation is mostly due to the lack of methodological precipitation of one's own experience and ability in the process of growth. Therefore, one should develop the habit of recording, depositing, and sharing with the outside world on a daily basis to improve one's own abstraction and summarization ability.
Related links:
What are the core competencies of software test engineers?
https://time.geekbang.org/column/article/11325
What non-testing knowledge do software test engineers need to master?
https://time.geekbang.org/column/article/11453
QA, don’t forget your original intention
https://insights.thoughtworks.cn/qa/
Dialogue with big coffee | Xie Mengjun: How do technical people build their own personal brand
https:// time.geekbang.org/column/article/41650
Running Yourself Like a Company
https://time.geekbang.org/column/article/280891