Like title says, asking for a friend. He's been qa engineer for a while but wants to transition into swe. I told him it's possible by climbing from qa automation > Devops > swe He is afraid that from 5.yoe in qa becoming swe would drop his pay severely. I couldn't answer since Samsung tc is already shiat. Any thoughts or anyone with experience going from QA to swe? How long did it take you?
I would imagine it's easier to transition within the company. Getting a job elsewhere needs some LC.
Depends on the company Most companies don’t encourage it.
I did it, not too long ago. I changed internally to a SW dev position first, worked for a year or 2 (without much of a pay hike due to internal transfer) and then moved out for the right TC for SWE
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Tell him not to waste another second in QA if he wants to be an swe It marks him as a QA person and it’s very hard to transition - the more he’s on it and any learnt skills go completely dull About pay - maybe it will be hurt for a short period - but in the long runs few qas make more than a non senior swe even. I tried taking the longer route - it was a complete waste of time so switched to an early stage startup to get experience and soon moving to faang The advice with bootcamp and aggressive job searching is on point
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Many years ago, I switched from QA to SWE. It's definitely possible and I would encourage it. Today, a person with no prior coding experience can join a bootcamp and get a $100K job offer (or higher). If your friend is concerned about a loss in salary by switching jobs, I say get an SWE offer first, then compare. Don't speculate about salary differences. Get offers.