What should be the next steps for my career?

Question

I had a computer science degree years ago and currently have 2.5 years full-time working experience at a Canadian Bank doing QA/Performance Testing using tools such as HP Loadrunner and Performance Center 11.5 Initially, I was applying for QA manual testing position, but they offered me a performance testing position due to my computer science background. I accepted the job offer.Time flies and it has been almost 2 and half year now. My salary is still kinda low around 50K canadian dollar. I believe it's about time for me to move forward. At this moment, I feel like going to work is a total waste of time.I don't enjoy my work at all. The only benefit of working at a bank is the fact that it's a stable 9-5 job. However, everyday from 9-5, it feels like a total waste of time. Also, I don't really like coding for automation/performance testing. Unlike normal developer, coding for automation/performance testing is simply scripting the workflow, which is the most boring(But may not be the easiest) type of programming. To me, it's not really "creating" something. Option 1: If I continue in QA path, where should I go? I really don't want to do performance testing anymore and I don't want to touch the Loadrunner tool anymore. With 2.5 years of QA Performance Testing experience, where should I go? Option 2: Change to a developer job at a Startup/small company. I wonder what will be my initial salary? Will my 2.5 years QA performance testing experience become a waste? Any other suggestions?

Answer 1

Hi there,

Here's what I can tell you based on my personal experience working as a web developer alongside QA engineers:

Option 1: If I continue in QA path, where should I go? I really don't want to do performance testing anymore and I don't want to touch the Loadrunner tool anymore. With 2.5 years of QA Performance Testing experience, where should I go?

>> This is a bit complicated. You could stick with QA indefinitely, but I don't believe the upward mobility financially and professionally is really there; as a vertical it's a bit lacking compared to other options such as Web Development or even Database Administration. If you're comfortable managing the coding part of workflows for databases and/or direct queries on data, your options are much wider.

Option 2: Change to a developer job at a Startup/small company. I wonder what will be my initial salary? Will my 2.5 years QA performance testing experience become a waste? Any other suggestions?

>> This is also a bit complicated, unfortunately. 2.5 years of QA performance testing is definitely helpful and not a waste, but to become a full time developer at a startup requires a deep set of background knowledge - many people go to 3-6 month bootcamps to acquire that cutting-edge and ever-changing modern software knowledge, and still have trouble getting into startups because the startups are looking for such autonomous and well-informed employees. Your initial salary as a dev at a startup could easily be 80 thousand USD, mine was 100 thousand USD and they paid for me to relocate to another state as well. That was after a 3 month fulltime bootcamp and it wasn't a startup, it was a government contracting agency.

If you're interested to chat further on this topic, you can always reach me at www.linkedin.com/in/alison-n-stuart.

Best regards and best of luck to ya.