Testing Blog
GTAC 2011: Cloudy with a Chance of Tests
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
By James Whittaker
Has it only been 179 days since the last GTAC? My how time flies when you have lots of testing to do!
It is my pleasure to announce that not only is our collective attention being drawn back to this most intriguing test conference but yours truly, along with "Shoeless" Brad Green, have been asked to plan it. Given that Brad and I both spend a lot of time with our heads in the Cloud, this year's theme is
cloudy with a chance of tests
.
The composite meaning of this theme is purposeful: Testing apps that reside in the Cloud is itself a cloudy, as in opaque, process. Clouds on the horizon often signal change and testing in the Cloud certainly changes things. The Cloud breaks old testing paradigms and tools requiring that even the tried-and-true be rethought and recast. And, yes, the future of testing itself is cloudy and the need for testers and testing as it exists today is unclear. There are clouds gathering on the horizons of the discipline and this conference will be dedicated to interpreting their meaning and planning for their arrival. As always, GTAC will attempt to bring together people who have thought deeply about these subjects and are responsible for actual progress, technology and insights that will benefit others in the community.
We are still in the very earliest stages of planning, but here are the details as we know them:
GTAC 2011
will be in
Mountain View, CA
the week of October 25th and will be held at the
Computer History Museum
. GTAC or no GTAC, this place is well worth a visit and as an actual conference venue just might be the coolest location for GTAC ever.
As in the past, GTAC 2011 will feature a single track, all-keynote format with both internal and external speakers. We will be soliciting feedback from potential attendees about what topics and speakers are the most interesting. Our opening keynote has been determined already and it is none other than our most famous Alberto Savoia, translator of the ancient tome
The Way of Testivus
, and agitator extraordinaire with quotes like "
Building the right 'it' is more important than building 'it' right.
" If anyone can gather the clouds into a hurricane, it's Alberto. You can also expect updates on our open source test tools strategy.
One important addition we seek to make this year is to have a
Test Executive Session
sometime during the event. The idea is to gather top decision makers and budget owners at the biggest/best/most influential web companies on the planet. It will be a discussion about testing culture, organizational structure, technology deployment, innovation and so forth by the very people who can make change happen within their company. Our readers will be asked to nominate their Directors, VPs, SVPs and so forth who own their companies' testing charter.
Stay tuned!
Entrepreneurial Innovation at Google
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The April 2011 issue of Computer,
the flagship publication of the IEEE Computer Society,
features a cover article written by
Alberto Savoia and
Patrick Copeland (
@copelandpatrick
). The article,
Entrepreneurial Innovation at Google, explores some of the ideas we use to encourage engineers to well, innovate. For a limited time you can see a digital version of the article on
Computing Now – see
http://www.computer.org/
portal/web/computingnow
.
Enjoy,
Alberto & Pat
The SET Career Path
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
By James Whittaker
I've had a number of questions about the SET role and it seems I have confused folks when I say that the SWE is a tester and the SET is a tester and at the same time the SWE is a developer and the SET is a developer. What could possibly be confusing about that?
Oh, yeah. Right.
My next series of posts are going to detail the role of the SET and all will eventually be clear but some clarification on career path seems worthwhile.
SETs are developers who write test code and automation as their primary task. They are in every sense of the word a developer. When we interview SETs, SWEs are on the interview loop and SWE questions are asked. They are not all of the interview, but they are part of it.
This means that the skill set that our SETs possess makes them perfect candidates for switching to the SWE role. There is neither incentive nor deterrent to do so. SETs and SWEs are on the same pay scale and bonus structure (I have both roles reporting to me so I have real visibility into salary data) and their promotion velocity (again based on actual data) is roughly equivalent. This means that SETs have no outside influences to prompt them one way or the other.
The key factor is really the type of work you are doing. SETs who find themselves involved in SWE work usually convert to SWE. SWEs are also drawn in the opposite direction. Much of this happens through our 20% time work. Any SET interested in SWE work can take on a 20% task doing feature development. Any SWE interested in automation can find a group and sign up for a 20%. Right now I have both SWEs and SETs involved in such cross pollination.
The ideal situation is that the title reflects the actual work that you are involved in. So if an SET starts doing more feature dev work than automation, he or she should convert, same for SWEs doing automation work. In my time here, conversions in both directions have happened, but it is not all that common. The work of both roles is engaging, interesting and intense. Few Googlers are walking around bored.
Bottom line: do the work you are passionate about and capable of and the right job title will find you.
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