Can working in QA for a while make someone a better developer/engineer?

Question

I was just wondering what type of skills gained in QA would help someone become a better software engineer/developer (if any)? I was talking to a fellow intern, and he told me that some of his professors suggested he start out in qa first after graduating. The way he described it, it seemed like his professors suggested that would help him gain a solid foundation to become a better software engineer/developer in the future. Was wondering what everyone's inputs are

Answer 1

Yes—working in Quality Assurance can build skills that make someone a stronger software developer. QA teaches you to examine software from the user’s perspective, anticipate unusual behavior, reproduce failures, and communicate defects clearly. It also strengthens your understanding of requirements, application workflows, debugging, test design, and the software-development lifecycle.

Technical QA roles can provide experience with automated testing, APIs, databases, version control, continuous integration, and scripting. These skills transfer directly into software engineering because developers must write code that is reliable, testable, and maintainable.

However, starting in QA is not a requirement for becoming a developer. If software engineering is the goal, continue developing programming skills and building projects while working in QA. The best QA positions for that transition are those involving test automation, code reviews, debugging, and close collaboration with developers.