Analyzing Popularity of Software Testing Careers in Canada

TL;DR

This paper investigates the human factors influencing the career choice of software testing in Canada, highlighting the shortage of talent and proposing strategies to improve perceptions and attract more professionals to the field.

Contribution

It explores the reasons behind reluctance to pursue testing careers and compares perspectives between Canadian and Indian educational contexts, offering insights for industry and academia.

Findings

Identifies key factors affecting testing career choices.

Highlights differences between Canadian and Indian perceptions.

Provides actionable recommendations for improving testing career appeal.

Abstract

Software testing is critical to prevent software failures. Therefore, research has been carried out in testing but that is largely limited to the process and technology dimensions and has not sufficiently addressed the human dimension. Even though there are reports about inadequacies of testing professionals and their skills, only a few studies have tackled the problem. Therefore, we decided to explore the human dimension. We started with the basic problem that plagues the testing profession, the shortage of talent, by asking why do students and professionals are reluctant to consider testing careers, what can be done about that, and is the problem specific to locales or spread across the globe? This paper focusses on these questions. The study was carried out in one college in Canada and its findings are compared with a college in India. Studies in more colleges is required to develop acceptable national views. It also may help to study this phenomenon in more countries and develop global perspectives on the issue. However, the study certainly offers useful insights and helps educators and industry leaders to come up with an action plan to change the outlook towards testers in industry and in computer science and software engineering programs, and put the software testing profession under a new light. That could increase the number of software engineers deciding on testing as a career of their choice, could increase the quality of software testing, and improve the overall productivity, and turnaround time of software development activity.