Two years ago, I thought I was doing quite well, career-wise, not realizing just how precarious my situation really was at my job.
Within four years, I had worked my way up at this past company to acting as a QA Lead, supervising an offshore team of manual testers manually testing mobile applications. The week after a productive meeting with my boss to see how I could work my way to being a QA Manager, this company laid off all but a few manual testers, myself included, since I hadn't coded since grad school, ten years before.
Since then, it's been a mad scramble. A desperate three month job search where I spent a good fifty to sixty hours a week either studying automation development, or prepping for automation development interviews. My research notes became this blog.
When I finally found a company willing to take me on and train me in automation based on my coding portfolio I managed to assemble, I still spent a good fifty to sixty hours a week studying Selenium WebDriver + Java automation development.
Then it was another desperate three month job search when my two years of automation experience didn't live up to the vision of a new manager. It was tough, but I survived.
I've now been at my new job, working with my nose to the grindstone for the past two months, working with REST Assured to test RESTful APIs, Nightwatch.js for our Node.js projects, and trying to teach myself Geb + Groovy + Spock for future Groovy projects, trying not to get swept away by the current like so many of my manual QA co-workers.
Somehow, I managed in just two years, to go from being just a manual tester, to an automation developer, to a software developer in test. But that is not what I am thankful for...
What I am thankful for, this Thanksgiving season, is my brilliant wife, who has supported me, stood by me, rooted for me, and coached me all throughout this turmoil... Thank you, sweetie!
Happy Testing to all, and to all a Good Night!
-T.J. Maher
Twitter | LinkedIn | GitHub
// Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, Software Tester since 1996.
// Contributing Writer for TechBeacon.
// "Looking to move away from manual QA? Follow Adventures in Automation on Facebook!"
What I am Thankful For...
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