Attitudes of a Great Software Tester

In my previous post, I explained in my own words the "Attitude of a Great Software Developer".  This post will focus on the testers.  Developers and Testers are two great personalities that work literally in the opposite direction but towards a common goal of producing good quality software.  One deals with the making aspect of the software and other with the breaking aspect of the software.

In this post, I will share the attitudes that a Great Software Tester should have, in my own views.

Attitude #1 - I want to break that software at any cost

Make no mistake about it.  A tester's job is to find out bugs and in the process, make the software better and better as time progresses.  A bug is a tester's best friend.  So his/her primary intent is to break the software at any cost, find the loop holes, find that best friend of his one way or the other.  Whether it is through a systematic process of executing test cases or adhoc testing or exploratory testing, the objective is clear.

If you want to be a Great Tester, your attitude has to be to "Break the software at any cost and find out that BUG".

Attitude #2 - Ms. Great Developer, I challenge you that I can find bugs in your code.

I seriously doubt how many testers have this attitude.  

But if a person wants to be a Great Tester,
he/she needs to challenge the developer no matter how good the developer is and find out bugs in the code.

Attitude #3 - No compromise on the test quality

Just like code quality, the tests and the testing need to be of high quality.  Absolutely no compromises on the quality of testing no matter what.

A Great Tester or a person who wants to be a Great Tester will never compromise on the quality of his testing.

Attitude #4 - Acknowledge the developer

It might happen that the great developer has produced great code that doesn't contain any bugs.  Wow.  Hard to believe right? It is possible.  In those cases, acknowledge the developers.

A Great Tester has the attitude to acknowledge and respect the developers in case the code is bug free.  He/she should always remember that not only bug is his/her friend, the developer is also a friend.

Attitude #5 - I am in no way inferior to the developers

Honestly, how many people in the testing space have the feeling of being inferior to the Developer Community?  I bet many.  My point of view in this is, If as a Tester you feel inferior to a Developer, then you are actually not doing proper testing or testing itself.  As already explained, both testers and developers are great personalities that work almost in the opposite direction but with a common goal of producing good quality software.  I repeat this because this is very significant according to me.

If a person wants to be a Great Tester, he/she would be proud of his work and would not feel inferior.

Attitude #6 - Get to know more than the developers

Again how many in the testing space have more knowledge in terms of technology and their understanding of the architectures, than their dev counterparts.  Not many I believe.  As a tester, his job is just not to write test cases, execute and report some bugs.  It is beyond that.  He needs to understand the technology better so that he understands where he can break the software.

A Great Tester is one who wants to know more than the developers know to have that breaking edge.

With this I conclude this post.  Hope this post was worth reading.  Thanks for reading.  Comments are welcome.

About the Author

Rajaraman Raghuraman has nearly 8 years of experience in the Information Technology industry focusing on Product Development, R&D, Test Data Management and Automation Testing.  He has architected a TDM product from scratch and currently leads the TDM Product Development team in Cognizant.  He is passionate about Agile Methodologies and is a huge fan of Agile Development and Agile Testing.  He is the author of an Ebook "Programmer's Motivation for Beginners" & blogs at Programmer's Motivation blog.  Connect with him on Google+