[Scott Barber] Software testers

It never ceases to amaze me the number of different titles that show up on the business cards and in the email signatures of people who test software for a living. As if the sheer number of titles weren't bad enough, many of them are just plain erroneous. It's so bad, in fact, that I put the following instructions on the "Who are you?" slide when teaching classes about software testing:

Please introduce yourself. Be sure to include
Your name
A little about your current project
Your business card title
What you actually do
These instructions invariably draw a few chuckles, but it takes only a few people to introduce themselves before the class begins to appreciate the number of titles software testers hold, the variance in what software testers do across the industry, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be much correlation between one's business card title and their job descrīption.

The most common titles I hear, in rough order of frequency, include the following:

Software Quality Engineer
Test Automation Engineer
Quality Assurance Engineer
Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
Test Engineer
Quality Control Specialist
Quality Analyst
Systems Analyst
Software Test Manager
Business Analyst
I don't have a title
    
Without a clear understanding of what we do, it's only natural that people try to interpret what we do from our title.
 
 
    
 
 
"Specialist," "Engineer," "Architect," and "Manager" are usually indicators of grade or seniority, though I can't figure out what makes an "Engineer" subordinate to an "Architect" or a "Manager" superior to either. That is certainly not the hierarchy I learned while earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering. It also seems to be common to more or less randomly insert "Software" just about anywhere in the titles above.

The most common ways people describe what they do, also in rough order of frequency, include the following:

I test software
I automate tests
I find bugs
I validate requirements
I break things
I manage the test team