Over the past two years, I have known and worked with some very talented software engineers developing a slew of internal tools and services for the company I work for—Extend Health, Inc., a health insurance broker in Salt Lake City, Utah. Throughout that time, I have relished many opportunities to use cutting-edge technologies: C# 3.0, WPF, WCF, WF, the Office Communications Server platform, and the Entity Framework, among them.
Though I have learned a significant amount and will never forget the experiences I have at Extend Health, I am intensely excited for what the future holds. As you could probably guess, I have accepted a position as an SDET (Software Design Engineer in Test) at Microsoft in Redmond starting at the end of this month, where I will help further the capabilities of the Entity Framework runtime. Why test? I feel I have assimilated a plethora of knowledge when it comes to software development, and although I’m nowhere near the smartest dev on the planet, I think expanding my range by diving head-first into test is a step in the right direction. After all, what could be better than having the discipline to be enthusiastic about breaking your own software? (Before you ship, of course.)
Wish me luck!
As a tester you have to lose right from the get go. An infinite number of user input sequences overlaid on an infinite number of code sequences and you see the scope of the problem. When budgets are tight who is to say how much to cut the funds for testing, always a small part of overall software costs. But if anyone could find the best sets to do the job, I’m betting on you.