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I was hired as a software engineer in a company and there are multiple teams. The company hired me in a development team.

After getting hired I came to know that they have a different process for QA. They ask the developers to do the QA Testing of other developers' patches in a team. When I say testing I don't mean automated or any sort of unit testing I mean testing the complete business case for which the development was done.

Now I have mentioned often that I have interests in doing development but the company is forcing me to do QA as well like many other people.

My question is will this QA help me in my career as a developer because quite frankly I feel like I am not given enough development related tasks. The HR while hiring never mentioned this process and although through countless arguments with the people they never listen and I fear it may not be healthy for my development career.

The counter argument presented is that we have hired you as a software engineer and you must do both.

How can I present a good argument that may get me to do more development because the manage in my team is not supportive at all?

Joe Strazzere
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DevX
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  • Possible duplicate of How do I decline responsibilities that go beyond what's stated in my job description? – Bernhard Barker Jul 29 '19 at 17:54
  • It seems you've already gotten quite clear signals that doing QA is a non-negotiable part of the job. If you're not happy with that, you should find another job. – Bernhard Barker Jul 29 '19 at 17:56
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    How much of QA are you doing? If this is around 20% that is actually good for your personal development: you are getting to know different areas of the application and getting in touch with business on how things actually should work. If it is more than that and you are not fond of it I suspect you should start looking elsewhere and present your current job as bait and switch. However, when developers do QA instead of actual QA & SDETs is bad for a company: QA & SDETs have to have a "I need to break everything" attitude which is complete opposite of SDE's. – AlexanderM Jul 30 '19 at 00:21
  • @Dukeling thanks for the feedback but the possible duplicate seems different than my question. – DevX Jul 30 '19 at 07:03

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As a developer, you should be doing some QA. Even senior developers should be testing their code and dev teams cross testing each others' work is not unheard of.

Being better at understanding the nature of failures will make you a better developer. Doing some QA will do this. I don't think this will hurt your career long term; afterall, a sizable part of being a good dev is ensuring your code works and being competent within all phases of the SDLC.

UnhandledExcepSean
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    Beat me to it. I agree that any developer should have at least some form of QA experience. An additional point is the synergy you gain when you understand someone else's job. Whether at this company or the next, understanding why QA is asking 'stupid questions' will help you to pre-emptively deal with them or deal with them without getting upset. –  Jul 29 '19 at 17:50