Why do most people look at QA (Quality Assurance) jobs negatively?

Because very less fossils of dinosaurs have been found. Most of them are alive today and live amongst us. With age old opinions, what else we can call them. Because they love to get surprised when they meet testers like me, Pradeep, Santhosh, Ajay and many more. Because they want to make the game too easy for us. With such low expectations, we can easily amaze them. Because they are very kind-hearted people, who look for simplistic answers in life. They are saints. I don't know what they are doing with all this moh-maaya (wordly desires) in the IT world. Because most people make their profession look better by demeaning the profession of others. They make their line look bigger by erasing other lines. Because they think that anyone and everyone is going to give a damn about what they think about others' profession. Choose what you like from the above. Different people, different reasons. I am not talking about students, because it is not their fault. We created burger expecting youngsters and now want them to love pizza without any time investment of the kind we did when selling burgers.

There is really no answer for that :-) But, how does it matter? May be the answer could be, it is the people who have demonstrated the craft in a poor fashion to the world over the time. To me personally, I do not care if someone doesn't like going orr-road in my SUV. I love it and that is sufficient and I do not want to change their perception which would waste my time. Instead, I shall take my SUV and go for a drive. No profession is bad, it depends on what you make it. You are not bad, it depends on how you carry yourself. Period.

It was a long time ago, I wrote about why this was happening and how things can change or are changing in some parts of the world : http://testertested.blogspot.in/2009/06/attractive-professions-and-software.html You got to pardon me that I don't often use the word QA unless I want to make certain things explicit for some purposes that I may only see.

Just for fun ... Introduction: Roshan D'Mello (QA Tester) Mukesh Thakur (Developer) Roshan D'Mello: Hey Mukesh, there is a bug in your code. Type a text in username text box and press enter. Beep sound doesn't appear. Mukesh Thakur: How can that be a bug? There is no requirement that beep sound should come. Anyway, I will assign it to offshore and get it fixed. After 2 days, Mukesh Thakur : Roshan, bug is fixed. Please verify. After another 2 days, Roshan D'Mello :  I have re-opened the bug because sound is not coming in some PCs. Sound is coming in my machine, but my colleague Rajat Choudhry is not getting the sound. After another 2 days, Mukesh Thakur : Not a bug. I observed that your friend Rajat Choudhry has Old IBM machine. Unlike your DELL machine, IBM machines do not have inbuilt speakers. So, to hear the sound in Rajat Choudhry's machine, please use head phones and then get the bug closed soon. Another 2 days, Roshan D'Mello :  I have re-opened the bug because sound tone is Different across different machines. Sound is coming as 'BEEP' in my machine, but My colleague Rajat Choudhry who is having IBM machine is getting the sound as 'TONG'. Mukesh Thakur : Not a bug. Get lost man. What can we do for the bug? The Two machines are built in such a way that they produce different sounds. Do You expect the developers to rebuild the IBM processors to make them uniform? Please close it. Another 2 days, Roshan D'Mello :  I have re-opened the bug because intensity of beep Sound produced on 2 different DELL machines is different. My machine produces Beep sound of intensity 10 decibels whereas my friend's machine produces Sound worth 20 decibels. Fix your code to make the sound uniform across all machines. Another 2 days later, Mukesh Thakur :  Once again it is not a bug. I have noticed that the Volume set is different on the two machines. Ensure that volume is same in both The machines before I get mad and then close the bug. Another 2 days, Roshan D'Mello :  I have re-opened the bug. Mukesh Thakur :  What ?? Why? What more stupid reasons can be there for re-opening? Roshan D'Mello:  Sound intensity is different for machines placed at different locations (different buildings). So, I have re-opened it. After 2 days, Mukesh Thakur : I have made some scientists do an acoustical analysis of the two buildings you used for testing. They have observed that the acoustics in the two buildings varies to a large extent. That is why sound intensity is different across the 2 buildings. So, I beg you to please close the bugs. After 1 year Roshan D'Mello :  I am re-opeing the bug. During the year, I requested The clients to arrange architects to build two buildings with same Acoustical features, s o that I can test it again. Now, when I tested, I found that intensity of sound still varying. So, I am re-opening the defect. Mukesh Thakur : GROWLLLL.....I am really mad now. I am sure that the Sound waves of the two buildings are getting distorted due to some background noice or something. Now I need to waste time to prove that it is because of background noice. Roshan D'Mello :   No need for that. We will put the machines and run them in vacuum and see. Mukesh Thakur:  ?? Result----------------------- Mukesh Thakur is now in mental asylum while Roshan D'Mello has become QA Manager. Keep Smiling..  :-)

First of all nothing is good or bad. Everything at EOD is just a job. If it would have been bad and useless then companies would have never hired them since no company likes to waste money. Hence it solely depends on individual's choice. Now my opinion specifically from campus point of view. Yes definitely for QA or SDET positions students competing are handful. I will not comment on some stmts like QA is for non cs background bla bla bla....... Now what happens in campus is first of all they are not sure what teams u will join n wat job u will do. Again lets say some company has specifically told tht u will be joining some xyz team n doing abc job, there r pretty good chances tht when u join they might change ur team. At tht time if u dont hv counter offer u hv to join new team of which u hv no idea. Now qa vs dev Lets say u r hired as dev n ur team is changed, but since u r dev there is a good chance u will be making something that gives u satisfaction, so u dont lose everything Now Lets say u r qa n team changed, u r moved to a team that does just regression like running already available test suites, or do just blackbox testing or just support testing infra etc u will get bored for sure, again u might argue tht i can do automation make monitoring tools etc but it is still internal to ur company hence u might miss the thrill u get when ur code goes live n used by customers.... But this all doesnt make qa bad, there r very very much required since dev just knows his modules but qas know full product end to end. To wrap it up choose watever u feel good then switch job if u dont like..