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From: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Specification Tools and Code Testing
Message-ID: <29390@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 27 Aug 90 17:03:21 GMT
References: <20013@well.sf.ca.us> <1990Aug13.140347.9441@nixtdc.uucp> <19578@well.sf.ca.us> <8316@fy.sei.cmu.edu>
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Reply-To: mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor)
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Organization: Atherton Technology -- Sunnyvale, CA
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In article <20013@well.sf.ca.us>, jjacobs@well.sf.ca.us (Jeffrey Jacobs)
writes:
> In <8316@fy.sei.cmu.edu>, Bruce Benson writes:
> 
> > What activity does not need experienced people?  Give me some compelling
> > reasons why one activity (such as test) should have more or less
experienced
> > people then another activity (QA, design, coding, etc).
> 
> All software engineering activities require experienced people.  However,
> the general hiring requirements and patterns for testing are right at the
> bottom; take a look at misc.jobs.offered or your local Sunday want ads and
> see how many ads you can find for testing (or QA) requiring more than
> two years of experience.
> 
The point when you need experienced people is when you are trying to 
change the way you do things, or start out on new work. Less experienced
people sometimes hesitate to test the limits of their knowledge unless
they know that there is a recognized expert around who can help them
get out if they find themselves hopeless wedged in a horrible situation.
Typically these situations don't happen and the less experienced do just
fine without consulting the experienced people at all.  They find many
new ways of doing things that make great contributions.  But I have 
noted on several occassions reluctance of otherwise good people to
try working in an unknown area unless they know of a nearby expert to
contact.  Once an expert was hired EVERYONE's productivity went up
even if no one liked talking with the expert.  

I therefore presume that the implication of the orignal poster's comment was
that experienced people would be needed to support the substantial changes
to the testing job.

In general, companies have their own specific value systems, and I have
found many companies who seem to have a class system that values R&D engineers
most highly, and test engineers, and then support engineers lower.  This
is often seen in years of experience and in salaries.   I believe that
it is the fact that without the original product there would be nothing
to test or support, so R&D seems more important to the core business
(you could always ship it with poor quality, or poor support, but you can't
ship it at all if it hasn't been invented yet).  These trends can be seen
as suggested Jacobs by looking at want ads.  However, many organizations
that are hiring are looking to support existing activities, not start
totally new ones.  In such cases experienced people are less critical, since
the existing staff can train the newcomer.  But when big change is
planned, high paid, experienced experts may be sought out, even for
Test engineer and support engineering tasks.   However, local experts
may be well known through professional societies, etc. and may be contacted
directly to see if they are interested, rather than posting a want ad.
So lack of requirements for experience in want ads can be deceiving. 

Scott McGregor