This article is an extract from the book, What Did You Even Do? By Jake Bennett
I’m going to go ahead and just say “yes”, straight off the bat. Anyone could be. I’ll list a few of the attributes people will typically quote as making a good software tester, and then afterwards, I’ll offer you my thoughts on these:
- A desire to outsmart people to find bugs.
- A desire to understand how things work.
- A desire to make the best product possible.
- The ability to have empathy with what users of a product will need.
- Technical ability.
- Good people skills.
- Good communication.
- A desire to “break things”…
… and so on and so forth. Now the truth is, there’s lots of things that would make you a good tester, but in reality, there are different types of testers. The core question, for me, is not that different from what makes you good at most jobs, and it’s this:
If you don’t currently understand something, are you prepared to put in the effort to go away and learn about it?
It really doesn’t matter how much you understand today, just that each day you’re prepared to go and learn a little more. As a software tester, you’re signing up to be shown new things all the time, whether that’s new versions of the product your team is building, new tools, new this, new that. Nobody is born knowing everything, and with new things being invented all the time, you just have to be prepared to learn.
As for the bulleted list, those are examples of particular kinds of “flair” different people will have for certain aspects of the job, and they’re all useful. They can all be learned, to some extent, but I’ve no doubt that after some time in the job you’ll discover what your own flair is. In the meantime, you can get a long way with the ability to meticulously follow a set of instructions, and the motivation to go and learn about anything unfamiliar.
