David DeWinter

With work on Visual Studio 2010 winding down, both the Entity Framework and Astoria teams have test engineer positions open. Here are the job postings:

• Astoria
• Entity Framework

Note: If the job descriptions above still say you need C/C++ experience, this is not true. If you don’t have experience in these areas, don’t let that discourage you from applying! In fact, I didn’t have C/C++ experience upon arriving here…

Now, I know what you’re thinking—"ugh, test, you mean those guys who sit on the other side of the building and click on things all day?" And actually, when I first joined as a tester, I had a bit of the same mentality. That’s why I wanted to find out for myself what testers actually do. I have worked at Microsoft for a year now as a tester on the Entity Framework team and have learned a lot about the discipline of test, but I know I have only scratched the surface. Also, I should clarify that these positions are opening on the runtime team, so you won’t be clicking on things that much, if at all.

My background as a .NET developer has really helped me excel as a test engineer. The challenges that we face are very diverse and as a result I think there are many more opportunities for growth in the test discipline than in other disciplines. In a sense, we are developers ourselves; we don’t ship code (typically), but we must have the ingenuity and creativity to verify the code that does ship meets a high quality bar. Test can be a very demanding discipline, especially for those people who have a background in development.

If you want to know more about my experiences feel free to contact me using the contact form page, and I hope you consider applying if you’re looking for a challenging job.

P.S. I should note that the Astoria job description is missing an important sales pitch—you get to work with Pablo Castro! Yes, that Pablo.

Posted by David DeWinter under Entity Framework | No Comments »