You often hear about what you need to learn to become a tester, but have you ever wondered what you will learn when you are a tester? Besides enhancing specialized skills such as software testing, requirement analysis, and staying updated on new technologies, you can also improve some useful knowledge and skills in life as follows:
- Deep Understanding of Various Business Domains:
This is truly interesting because few professions can help you understand another industry's business so thoroughly. As a tester in software project, you have the opportunity to read all customer requirements, understand the project's detailed design, and thus comprehend the activities, processes, or specific requirements of a particular organization or industry. While developers may only understand a part of the functionality which they are responsible for. Due to job demands, testers must learn more about the context, operational environment, end-users behavior, security issues, and compliance of the field they are testing in. Therefore, testers accumulate knowledge about various business domains such as banking, logistics, ERP, etc.
Furthermore, because testers test all function of the product, they will have a deep understanding of how business operations are reflected in a software product. They know exactly how real-world data flows will be stored and processed within the software system.
Imagine after testing a material management software system for a manufacturing factory, you will know how the material ordering process works, how purchased materials are categorized and stored, how to calculate the quantity of materials for each production line, how to calculate inventory, and the appropriate time to reorder new materials... You may even understand the production process better than an employee of that factory. This is amazing!
- Improving Communication Skills:
In the world of developing a software product, developers are builders; they create code that makes everything work. Testers are detectives; they verify the correctness of the product, accompanied by a list of errors that developers need to fix. It is frustrating to be pointed out errors and have to fix them; especially those not mentioned in the design but must be done according to the tester's suggestion. Therefore, testers and developers are often seen as two opposing sides.
When starting out as a tester, it is hard to avoid arguments and conflicts. However, over times, to persuade and prevent arguments with developers, testers practice the ability to express opinions, provide feedback, and report clearly, understandably, and convincingly. They also learn to listen, share information, exchange ideas, and resolve conflicts constructively. This significantly improves their communication and persuasive skills.
- Viewing Problems from Various Perspectives:
To ensure that the testing process is comprehensive and reliable, throughout the work, testers must test the product from various perspectives. As a good tester, you not only test what is mentioned in the design but also have to stand from the end-user's perspective to think whether your software is user-friendly, helps them operate faster... You not only test the software when it operates under good conditions but also test it under poor conditions. You need to create various test scenarios. This helps you develop a multidimensional mindset for solving different life problems.
In summary, as a tester, you not only contribute to the development of software, bring many useful experiences for end-users but also learn and improve many good skills for your life.
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