Don’t put me in a box
I'm trying to find a new assignment as a self-employed Test Consultant, and this confronts me with some facets of job searching that I don't really enjoy.
My main complaint is that most roles try to fit you into a neat little box, and I don't fit in any of the standard testing role boxes, so to say.
I am not a SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test). I don't mind supporting test automation, figuring out where it makes sense and where it doesn't, designing automated tests and writing code, but doing only that? Hell naw. If I wanted to be a developer, I would never only write test code. This is such a weird divide in IT that I have never understood. Automation in testing is a piece of a much bigger whole, and I don't want to specialize in just one part of what testing has to offer.
I am not just a tester on a team. You can put me on a team, no problem, but don't expect me to never look beyond the confines of the team to solve test problems. I have mostly operated in frontend teams, and without fail, we would run into problems that threatened our software quality that were not caused by us. That's exactly the challenge I like. Diving head first into the problem, tracing it down to the source and figuring out who we need to solve it. I usually find these problems in the first place by doing exploratory testing, my favourite way of testing.
I am not just a tester. After 12+ years in IT, I am so much more. I can write reports about the state of testing that get to the point and inform people quickly. I share publicly what I am testing, anyone can critique my work. My writing skills also come in handy when it comes to clarify requirements, or any other type of technical documentation.
You need test management? No probs, I can do that too. I have a strong opinion about how testing should be organised, and can help teams create test strategies that are based on actual risks and actions we're going to take. A test strategy should not end up as a huge document that no one will ever read. I can coordinate testing over multiple teams, but don't expect me to give up doing actual testing myself. Need to keep practicing what I preach.
I can help other people to develop their testing skills, usually by working in a pair. Or, I can also give workshops or presentations to larger groups.
I have done Ops work because I have worked in DevOps environments. I was happy to have skin in the game, and could solve smaller problems in production. I learned a ton about observability.
I like working with developers who also like testing. Testing is a team sport, the divide between testing and development never made sense to me. I like showing developers that they can also be excellent testers, by teaching them how to shift perspective from "creating" to "critiquing". (When I learned iOS development back in 2020-2021, I learned that it was extremely hard to combine these two modes in one go. When I was writing code to create something new, I was focused on that, and it was hard to also find the bugs. After a while, I would take a break, get a coffee and come back to find faults in my own work. The short break enabled the perspective shift, and I could easily test and criticize my own code.)
You need a retro organised? A meeting led? A backlog managed? Don't want to be the only one doing it, but sharing this responsibility? Sure thing!
Point is: I can do so much. I'd rather call myself an IT generalist, but that is a box that for sure doesn't exist (right?). I have seen so much at work, been through so many IT projects, all that experience is useful. Most of it is in testing, but which box do I fit in? None! And a bit of all of them!
If you need my expertise, I am now actively looking for an assignment. I am located in the Netherlands, but can also work remotely for European countries. I do want to stay self-employed for now, so you can only hire me as a contractor.
If you want someone with tons of IT project experience and don't mind that I don't neatly fit into a box, send me a message!
Agile Testing Days OG's remember: