Is it extremely rare during the software lifecycle to jettison most of the automated test tools, and then?

What can I do to move into product development software?

• I'd like to move to a company that makes software as it's primary product... what kind of skills will I need to add to my resume to get in the door? I have a CS degree and love programming, but I've been writing code for hardware manufacturing and QA for about a decade. I'm wondering if it's left me with some blind spots. Also, I admit that I sometimes feel like the software industry sees programmers with my experience as second class citizens... perhaps it's just me? Among other things, I've built a lot of tools and manufacturing test equipment, set up source code control and build management systems, made small projects in half dozen different programming languages, spent time reading technical books and papers, and helped organize user group meetings for others in the same niche I'm working in. In other words, I'm competent. BUT, the systems that I've worked on tend to be small (for instance, I've never had to merge code in any automated way), and I've very rarely had the opportunity to work in person with really top notch programmers (amazing scientists, electrical and mechanical engineers, yes, but programmers... a bit less). And only rarely do I have the chance to do a really deep dive on the technology I'm working on. Just enough to learn the API and get the tool built and product out the door. While I've enjoyed what I've done, I'd like to move away from the QA firing line ("What do you do here, anyway?" is depressingly common from management... or perhaps its more alarmingly common, since I work in medical devices). And, I'd like to work directly on making something that's used by more than the engineers down the hall. So, hivemind, what can I do to move in that direction?

• Answer:

  Start applying for jobs. Your experience sounds more than relevant enough. It's good that you have experience with learning new APIs, source code management, and multiple languages. You will need to be comfortable discussing your design and implementation choices with other programmers on the team. You might not get a chance to do it at your current job, but as long as you can confidently explain why you chose X to get Y done, you'll be fine. If you actually get rejected because of your lack of experience on large projects (unlikely IMO), you could contribute to a big open-source project to get a feel for it.