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I am working as associate developer and I have 1 year of experience. But I really wish to switch into testing, as I have completed Manual Testing and QTP course, and because I have less knowledge in writing code.

I need to know the possibilities and reasons to say during interviews when I am asked why I am switching from dev to testing?

Kate Paulk
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Vaishnavi
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5 Answers5

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If you enjoy testing more than you enjoy developing, then that's all you need to say.

No sensible interviewer expects a developer with a year's experience to have really good coding skills: unless your skills with code are weak compared to other developers with your level of experience it should not be an issue.

On a personal note, I started my career as a developer, which I enjoyed, then found myself in a situation where the only job I could get was in testing which I liked even more. I've been a tester ever since. A tester who knows code is a valuable asset to a software development team - they can automate and depending on the nature of the code can sometimes pinpoint the exact problem and offer suggestions on the fix (I've done this - I'm a bit more experienced with SQL than some of the developers I work with, so there are times when I'll wind up debugging their queries for them and giving them advice on how to fix them. The good ones don't mind because it saves all of us work.)

Kate Paulk
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I almost complete agree with Kate Paulk. Almost because I would say: If you don't have fun during work - change your job. In the last years I saw many (ok they were mostly trainees but hey..) people who didn't have fun in their given parts of software engineering and their useful output was much lower than the output of those who had fun doing their job.

For myself I also started as a developer after my traning as a software engineer. In my freetime I'm in a leading position of a small browser game and so I don't only code but also do requirements enineering and QA. After some time I noticed for myself I'm stronger in this parts of the whole process than in writing code. So I was happy when I had the chance to switch from development to QA. I noticed that I can can analyses problems very well and with my experience as a developer I find many bugs my QA partners (who have no experience as a developer) don't find (keywords: experience driven testing / error guessing). Furthermore my knowlegde helps me to write automated tests like load test, automated GUI tests and so on. I also noticed in several testing courses (e.g. of ISTQB) that many tester who don't have experience in developing (may) have certain problems in understanding.

To conclude this and came back to the question:

  1. If you have more fun in testing that's the most valuabe point. As more fun means more motivation and (much) better output of your work.
  2. With your experience as a developer but your strengths in testing you are also more worth for the company as you can generate better output again. Maybe you can also improve QA in general due automated testing and so (see part above)

So: Tell the truth and make the advantages of your switch from developement to testing clear. Any wise boss will understand it and you'll get work :)

Good luck anyway (you always need a bit luck) - and remember: It's all about fun and motivation at work! Not about the money!

bish
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If you are having interest in testing then you should have been start your career as QA/Tester instead of developer. but its ok its great now you awake and want to set your career as QA in which you have actual interest. QA/Tester career is really good if you update your knowledge regularly , get experience in automation etc.

In interview there is no need to be lie , you should tell interviewer clearly that I am not having very good command over coding which I feel during 1 year and also my main interest is testing instead of development so want to switch job as tester profile. This is best way to be honest in interview regarding your field switch question.

Another way is , you can tell that I was really in need of job and at that time I did not try to find more job on specific interest field and got job as developer and I accepted as I needed job really so. Also tell that now I want to switch to my interest field like QA because I feel that I can make my career strong as QA rather than development because I am having interest in QA profile.

Helping Hands
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As a person who did the same transition (dev to QA ) and also conducted interviews for similar cases I can give you few tips

  • Don't say you don't like coding , or not good at coding . When an organization interested in hiring a person with dev background for QA position , they might be looking for a candidate for Test Automation (probably )
  • Try to highlight the fact that you are seeing holistic view of software rather than each technical component
  • Try to convince them how you see things different , in end-user perspective and give some examples for Bugs,Omissions or UX issues you see in common software -
DasunB
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There are no. of good reasons you can share to become / shift to Testing.

  1. A Tester can get the complete application knowledge whereas A developer, though they are good in a particular module, cannot get complete knowledge of the application most of the times.
  2. A Tester, after having years of experience - can have two ways to travel - either in Testing or as a Business Analyst.
  3. A Tester can work as an end user, where he / she can enjoy the real functionalities of the application.
Muthuramalingam
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  • Your comments don't answer the question, which is how to answer an interviewer asking why the OP is changing from development to testing. Answering this question with your responses will have the interviewer asking, "But why are you changing to testing?" – Kate Paulk Jun 15 '15 at 11:52