Education · 1 of 4

The path

Many roads in, and the job itself is a road to somewhere else.

1. 1

   High school

   Grades 11 and 12

   Computer science if offered. Testing rewards people who are careful, curious and a little suspicious. Try breaking the apps you use and writing down exactly how.

2. 2

   Training, or not

   0 to 4 years

   A 2-year college diploma in computer programming (Algonquin, Seneca, NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology), Nova Scotia Community College) is the most common. Some testers have a computer science degree. Some have no training and got in through a game studio or a contract.

3. 3

   First testing job

   Months

   Manual QA (quality assurance): following test plans, clicking through features, writing bug reports developers can reproduce.

4. 4

   Add automation

   1 to 2 years

   Learn to write tests in code (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress) and to read the developers' code. Get the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) Foundation certificate.

5. 5

   Specialize or move on

   3 to 5 years in

   Automation engineer, performance tester, security tester, QA lead, or cross over to development or product management.