Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tester Salaries – 3 Steps for Raises

I hear every now and then comments like “Google pays testers as much as developers”. On the other side, as I look around, I often see testers with much smaller salaries than fellow developers. Now what is causing this difference? I’ll provide 3 different explanations and look forward on readers to comment their own views on the matter.

1)      You don’t separate from others.
Ask from your managers (depending on company structure, this could be for example test manager, unit manager and HR manager) how you are different than other testers in the company. If they can’t give good answers, you need to start working on getting those answers for them. Now! You need to be able to stand out. You don’t want to be transparent for those people who decide your salary and affect on your career. Be creative and show passion to your line of work. Don’t settle for asking what is expected from you but amaze people with your ideas.


2)      You are working in a wrong company.
I understand we need to make choices in our lives and not everyone can work in the best company. Don’t get discouraged because of this. Everyone needs to start from somewhere and get food on the table. You can try to change the company, but if that is not going to happen, start looking for new opportunities. There are lots of great companies in the world and you can even make one yourself. Here are a few signs of a company you want to get rid of:
·         Managers and/or Developers don’t value testing
·         You don’t have the chance to participate conferences or other means to increase your skills and network
·         There is a lot of documentation involved (test case design, test planning, …) and metrics (numbers) are appreciated as the main measurement of testing efficiency/quality/performance
·         You are often told to do extra hours because “there is a release on Friday”

3)      You are not as good as you think you are.
Testing is not about being the bug hunting hero. It’s not about being the guy who finds the "best" bugs. Of course, part of the job is to find issues, but when we are talking about being a professional, we are talking about many other things. Your value to the company is increased significantly when you start training others, participate conferences, read books, recommend books to others, help developers to avoid mistakes… Especially the information sharing part is often overlooked. Make others better and your importance to the company will grow. Be more important than the fake hero of the test lab.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Jari,

    Really liked what you wrote in your 3rd point. Training others not only elevates your importance by adding value to the company but also should be a critical motto of everyone's life. Passing knowledge to Next-Gen is what determines your importance to the world :-)

    Best Regards,
    Yagnesh Shah

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    1. Hi Yagnesh,

      I completely agree with you! Thanks for the comment!


      Best regards,
      Jari

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  2. Hi Jari,
    What is your opinion on not giving enough respect or importance to QA team? What do you thing the prime reasons behind that and how to handle those kind of situations?

    Does it due to lack of knowledge/process?

    Thanks,
    Arvind

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    1. Hello Aravind,

      You have really good questions! I'll take a note and write a post about this later. The topic is interesting and definitely has more into than a short reply.

      I've seen one common reason for lack of respect: lack of understanding. The developers/managers who don't give too much importance on good testing usually don't understand what good testing is. We need to be able to explain and show them what good testing is and is not.

      Thanks for the comment!


      Best regards,
      Jari

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    2. I agreed with you,Waiting to see your blog on this for more info.Thanks for your response.

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  3. Hi!

    Sometimes the easiest way is in fact making money an issue. Say to your manager that the pay is not enough. If you know how to reason your request for higher salary you're in a good position.

    BR, Peksi

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    1. Hi Pekka,

      I like this a lot. I've seen too many people ask for more money, but not being able to give grounds for the request.

      Thanks!


      Best regards,
      Jari

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  4. I've been posting in my blog for about a year now, and the first few posts are about just the same.

    My grain of rice:

    In Mexico, for just about every company I've worked for, Testers make as much as developers, even more in my case (hehe). However, we do not get as much respect as they do. I, as Araving, look forwards to reading your post about QA team/respect issues.

    We'll get (more) respect when we educate management and developers about the importance of testing (As Trish Khoo puts it). When we stop falling into the profession, when we don't see ourselves as the defenders of quality(As Lis Hendrikson puts it). When we acknowledge that we don't own quality, but everyone in the project does, then we might get some more respect.

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    1. Hello Omar,

      Thanks, great to know how things go in different countries and continents!

      I have a boatload of blog post topics in the queue so please stay tuned.

      I agree, testers will get more respect if they stand up, show the managers the value of their work and use their skills to help make better products. Testers give information. Because of this, testers need to improve on giving that information.


      Best regards,
      Jari

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