Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Still unemployed and I have only had a handful of interviews over the last 7 and 1/2 months. Two that I had at Microsoft last summer went well but because of the 6-month break I could only hv worked until December 31st so I was passed over for those. I interviewed at amazon for a manual test position and bombed. That's not surprising as I haven't done manual testing in over four years. Also they're fairly critical. One additional interview at Microsoft and while I was extremely strong on the test methodology aspects they were also looking for an SDET... so they should probably be interviewing for two positions because according to them none of the code strong candidates had a clue about test methodology. But none of the testers were strong enough in coding.

Now another M$ opportunity has opened up. No news this week thanks to the holiday. I look more qualified for this one... according to the recruiters. (Right.) But I still need to do a bit of refresh and ramp up. So I'm hitting  Beginner SQL Tutorial and a few other sources along with some books on networking and TCP\IP. This is listed as an STE4 position but that's meaningless really. A lot of times the designation is a head count slot and not the actual job. This sounds more like an STE2 or STE3 position.

But as for the trends I mentioned last time... virtually every STE position I've seen listed now demands code. Essentially they want SDET's for STE1 or STE2 wages. So once again the question come up as to whether I want to pursue scripting and coding to enhance my testing skills or just move in another direction.

I was hoping ot get into Green River College for Winter quarter but I'm going to have to wait for another year. At least this gives me an opportunity to apply for financial aid. They have Associates and Bachelors degrees in programming and network administration... which is the direction I'm leaning. I prefer hardware for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's harder to have a hardware based job outsourced offshore. Outsourcing programming is easy especially when everything is going cloud based. God luc outsourcing cabling. Also I've had a batter head for that than I have for coding. I just haven't trained myself to think in the programmers abstract. But I also don't know how many people actually do that.