Bringing together what belongs together with the A4Q Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Autor: Richard Seidl

"Developers with testing skills are in hot demand - and the market is empty." - Richard Seidl

I have been accompanying teams and companies on their agile journey for many years now. But it is still a wonderful moment every time when tangibly these historically grown walls between roles and professions are torn down, resulting in a real boost in collaboration and productivity.  For me, this is particularly visible in software testing:

Whereas teams used to be strictly separated - the test team here and the development team there (with all the conflicts, recriminations, and friction) - this expertise is growing together more and more. With the right support in the form of mentoring and training, exactly what makes the magic happen: Quality and testing competence become the lived practice of the whole (!) team. Quality becomes an attitude

Establish testing skills  

For mentoring or coaching, people often start by putting a tester on the team. This is a good start, but care must be taken not to create a dynamic in the team along the lines of: "Yes, look, one tester, then the rest don't have to worry about quality." After all, the point is to establish the testing skills in the entire team! 

What remains is to equip your own developers with testing skills. For most software developers, however, training such as the ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) is too abstract and covers topics such as test management that have little relevance in everyday development work. 

It is interesting to note that earlier CTFL curricula and exams were also suitable for developers with applications to source code. However, technical know-how was successively banned from the CTFL. 

Building bridges 

The A4Q Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) certification, which I took a closer look at, aims to close this gap. 

It was developed in cooperation between the German Testing Board (GTB) and the Alliance for Qualification (A4Q) and conveys exactly those contents of the CTFL that are relevant for software developers: Why actually testing? How and what do I test in my development process? What are the benefits of static analyses and reviews? How do I create good test cases - i.e. which test case design methods are available? The contents are further deepened by components from the ISTQB Certified Tester Advanced Level - Technical Test Analyst (CTAL-TTA). 

To make the transfer into the daily development routine more tangible, there are accompanying practical exercises that work directly with source code and specifications. In my opinion, SDET builds an important bridge between software development and testing skills. 

Developers with testing skills are in hot demand - and the market is empty. The massive increase in test automation demand in recent years has exacerbated the situation. So further training of existing employees is a sensible step. And finally, it is another step towards a holistic, integrative team, the reduction of insular and siloed knowledge and more exchange on topics at eye level!

iSQI suggests:  A4Q SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER IN TEST (SDET)

About our Guest Author

Richard Seidl: Richard Seidl is a software testing expert, Agile Quality Coach, and author. He has seen a lot of software in his professional career: good and bad, big and small, new and old. Software so beautiful that you could cry and also software that makes your toenails curl. For him, it's clear that anyone who wants to create excellent software today has to think holistically about the development process: people, context, methods, and tools - only when everything works together does a mindset for potential development and innovation emerge.

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