If I have to write a testing document for QA, what’s the point of having QA? The only type of QE I support is when I don’t have to give them specifics. Juts a summary of changes and they try to find bugs. The rest is useless

I've always been curious what the difference between a Principal Engineer, a Project Manager, a Systems Engineer, a Design Engineer, or any other job title that does the same basic thing, but at different levels: illicit requirements, analyze requirements, break requirements down to a level where they can be implemented, handle communications, risk, quality, and changes. It seems to me, like 95% of the processes are the same, they just use different inputs, and result in different outputs, of which the main difference is level of detail and audience.

What do you think about recent trend of decentralization in the blockchain industry? Do you think they have figured out something differently now? Or its the same P2P trend recurring?

What advice would you offer to someone beginning their career as a manual QA, especially if their initial role also marks the company's first venture into QA? Essentially, this individual will be the pioneer, establishing the standards and expectations for the role.

I work as senior SDET i know python java and sql...Can u suggest which path i can take...Can i take data scientist or do u think new roles of QA will come for AI or data scientist or ML.Please suggest

As software engineer don't look into any of these patents. Companies can sue you over this.

Great video! Good tips, reassuring to know you go through this too, despite all your success Surprising that you didn't have more subscribers You and ALifeEngineered (Steve Huynh) are my favorite advice sources but he really doesn't deserve that much more views than you

Wow, he got a PhD while working

A real gem of video for aspiring senior engineers.

Another great video! Thanks!

Truly shows the dedication to your craft that you made this video after donating 3 litres of blood

Corporate engineer discovers tracing lol

The #1 advice should be to not blindly offer your loyalty to a company. Switching jobs is the best way to get promoted and/or a raise.

I want to become a principal developer. I need a roadmap

This guy literally don't understand (or pretend to) the fact that there are more managers who do very little and earn x10 more than the best ICs in the company, then managers who actually deserve their title, over-saturated salary and benefits package etc.. and I don't refer to team-leads or lower-tier "factory floor" managers who actually do work really hard... I talk about all of the "execs" or C-level officers, in medium to large companies most of them not promoted from the factory floor due to hard work and dedication, but are being hired from the outside and are usually either connected to one of the company owners or board members in some way, they fetch anywhere between x10 to x50 times more salary then the most highly paid senior IC in the company (whose contribution is in many cases the sole reason for the success of the company) but spend their work week between long phone calls (many times with "pals" discussing whatever...), useless meetings (where they will waste other people's time with their PowerPoint presentation so that they can look as if they actually do anything of value), and many private "business meetings" in the middle of the day, sometimes they attend their corner office just 2 days a week since they are "busy" with "meetings" etc.. that type of execs are also the type that when things get tight, they will fire anybody but them self, just so that they don't have to take a salary cut or god forbid return their company supplied Mastercard or Luxury company car. source: I am 20 years in tech, including management roles.. also as Engineering Manager.

Hey i am 28 years old having 2 years of automation testing and 5 years into manual , somewhere i agree but the codebase and infrascructre is so vast that testing would likely to be a key skill while doing migration to new tec stacks or environments, suddenly stumbled at your video title and not sure what to do next ? Any suggestions?

Miss you man

Been seeing a lot of Manual QA ppl getting laid off. Happened to me. I'm in QA but trying to learn Development now

Very informative video! Also, I have a question: Do you think a PhD is a waste of time if someone is not sure that he wants to have a research career?

Thank you for your insight. What can you tell about modern QA teams who run literally thousands of automated tests ensuring quality (like banking apps for example). I am talking about sdets. The reason I am asking is it seems like modern web apps have low quality and qa's seem to be relied upon.

Some PEs do have direct reports. Also PE role is not for introverts, some socializing and travel is expected. Rewarding? Yes very much so.

Strange how people reaching PE level satisfy themselves with 1mln per year when with their skills theyd surely earn way more as software company owners.

Sit and do "nothing" or "the pending work" does work! Thank you!!!

i just use brave browser which has fingerprint blocking, cross site cookie blocking and adblocking by default. i also sometimes use adnauseum which is the most based adblocker but sometimes it breaks sites.

I hear and understand what you're saying mate, but as a seasoned tester of 23 years, one thing I've learned about developers is that they don't always properly test their own code (they also test to pass) and that includes integration in the small. Many don't follow a set standard of coding, each person has their own personal standard for meeting requirements/usecases. Many builds eventually moved into the test environment fail a basic smoke test and get rejected by QA. Often developers underestimate in their estimating, which often results in less time for QA testing, as Dev took longer to deliver than expected, not to mention all the environment issues in DEV/QA/UAT not closely reflecting Production, hence installation issues and data issues. So what I'm trying to point out is that a manual QA team is still needed (let's not forget all those browsers, tablets and mobile phones with their different operating systems and versions and the need for scalability and legacy testing). User Acceptance Testing for the most part is still run by a QA team that helps walk business through software changes and new features. Also let's not forget that Test automation (require skills in coding) has been around for some time as well and AI in testing seems to be the new push. I understand it's about budgets and time and the client wants everything for nothing, but many many many organisations would go bust if they cut out QA Testing.

Can I connect with you on LinkedIn ??

Made it to principle at Amazon last year. Very accurate but I feel like you only would really understand it when you reach there.

“1. The managers don't understand the difference between testing, pinpointing, and debugging. 2. Because they don't understand the difference, they believe that testing caused most of the trouble in projects they've experienced.” Excerpt From Perfect Software And Other Illusions About Testing Gerald Weinberg This material may be protected by copyright. Please read the book I suggested above, even if you've read it before. Then, carefully reflect on what you have done throughout your 30-year career in the software industry. I have always questioned why Windows - one of the most crucial products of a multi-billion-dollar corporation - has never achieved the quality I expected, or why Bing has never become a popular browser, even in 2024 when Microsoft invested billions to integrate Copilot into it until I watched your video.

maybe the best video I saw on this subject. thank you.

I appreciate your insightful advise John!

I have a signed offer and will be resigning from my current finance job to take the new one when my bonus pays out in 6 weeks. In the interim, an extremely desirable role adjacent to my current team just opened up. Though I don't want it and I'm happy to be leaving, the optics are tough to manage, since anyone in their right mind in my seat (who was staying at the firm) would want to apply for this job. I am the clear favorite (my current job is a feeder to that job) and I'm being actively encouraged by my current (and potential future) manager to apply. How do I navigate this? I don't want to apply, interview, and accept an internal role/promotion just to leave a week or two later, but shrugging and saying "i'm not interested" is likely to be highly suspicious. I'm worried about tipping my hand before my bonus pays.

It's been two years since you published this video and I'm benefiting from it in 2024. Thank you! All great advice that reinforces what I've heard from disparate sources, in one concise video.

❤

Thanks for sharing the lessons of your experience, John. Many excellent nuggets here which have the right depth / context. Hope to see more videos from you down the road. One tip I'd add: while I don't wholly endorse "coding" as an EM, contributing in small ways (e.g. bug fixes, writing tests) can help to keep an EM technically grounded in some ways. More importantly, it's a mechanism to generate empathy for what the engineers may be up against. I'd posit that while the value of this is durable to variance an EM's span of control.

say NOOOoooooo to zoom manipulation !

Thank you very much for such a thought provoking video. I clicked on this video thinking the exact opposite of what you explained, but at the end of the video, you did change my perspective. I did experience of being in wrong job and losing the job about 3 months back, and now I am attending a first interview tomorrow. I feel I am better prepared now. I do trust my skillset and if its a YES on both sides, only then I will go ahead with job. Desperation of job will not alter my decision now.

Hey John, thanks for sharing! that would be really cool, at least from my perspective, if you can add 5th gem in your collection "What does great managers do that other managers don't". Cheers!

I’ve been a QA for about 1.5 years now, after one year in my previous company I was recruited by another one that gave me a promotion as Midd QA. I support what this video says. I was considering just continuing on this path and becoming a Senior/Manager, as I think I’m a pretty good QA and Im growing fast. However… I’ve always felt QA is second class (because it is) and it’s not enough.

I see in your replies that you don't see this as a "right" decision, it seems that you just accepted it. But, how do you cope with that? Wouldn't it be better to own it as the right thing to do (for you) with more pride? I did the exact same thing. Not with Microsoft but a different company. Even though I left for a higher paying, with more work-life balance job, some friends didn't understand my decision. It has helped me to know myself, my character and values better, and that's priceless. I think, like you said, that finantially it might not have been "the best" decision (which is still debatable because I doubled my salary), but in that moment finantial freedom was not on my mind. I valued other things. So... Idk, just wanted to say thank you for sharing, and I really hope you're not regretting it deep down because I don't think you should.

I don't think one can be an individual contributor forever. The expectation will keep on increasing to the extent of becoming less valuable beyond certain limit

You are forgetting to mention that developers are stressed out, burned out, and on call rotations. QA isn't like that. You couldn't pay me 1 million a year to be on call and burn out often, causing my mental health to suffer, not worth it...

When is it a good time to get a patent? After the pro typos done or before?

I just started a bootcamp on QA, and I feel screwed after watching this video. Any tips on how to make myself marketable so I can switch once I am done with mt QA bootcamp.

Thank you so much for sharing!! ❤

I am a former QA Analyst. I left the field in 2017 because I decided it wasn't my thing. Actually, it never really was what I wanted to do. Now I'm gearing up to be a Data Engineer, which is so much closer to what I'm best at.

Hi John, I'm interested in testing but doesn't QA Testing invovle less actual coding than a regular Dev, especially if you're using codeless tools like JMeter, UI Testing, etc ? I enjoy testing, finding bugs, UI/UX and so on but don't want a job that's all or even mostly coding.

the 1st is actually "they had good managers"

Hi John, I just discovered your content and by far it has been a trip. I am in QA and noticed there are some principal test engineer position. What are your thoughts on that type of position? Or would it be similar to what you said in the video?

I am a QA engineer for over seven years in different areas now. I‘ve been switching companies and teams a lot within the past years because there often came the point that I was frustrated about the way the team or the company handled the quality aspects of the product. Than I was realizing more and more that my work often do not bring in the value of making the product better than thought it would be. That’s a bit tough because I really love to do test automation. Now your video catches me up right at the process of thinking about switching to the production development and to build parts of the product. Do you have any experiences or best practices on switching to become a developer from someone who was Test Automation Engineer before?

This is really the best video on the topic! Thank you for all that information, I think it is really precious to all of us trying to get an interview. However, you mention that applying online would be the hardest way to get an interview, since the number of competitors for the same job posting is very high. Lets assume the average probability of getting a positive reply for a specific role in the market is 0.1%. That means a candidate would have to send 1000 applications for every positive answer he gets, given every job posting matches the candidate’s professional skills. Finding 1000 job posting that matches a candidate skills and applying to them would be easy using a web crawler. Thus, wouldn’t that option be the easiest one?