Why did she take a job as a tester if she was a CS grad with developer aspirations?

In the OLD days that's how things worked. You got in to a company through the mail room or some other 'get to know the staff' position, then applied for better jobs in the company. Internal hires would typically be tried before looking outside since they'd have a track record that someone wasn't a flake.

I’m an old guy. That’s almost never how it worked. QA was always pigeon holed as QA and rarely considered dev material.

I'm speaking generally, about large companies in the 80s and before (though I'm thinking of a film that 'documented' it and I saw on TV when younger... "The Secret of My Success" (1987)).

The outsourced / pigeonholed employee pattern you're speaking of is something that I recall learning about more in the early 2000s; so it's been around for a while but not widely known outside of the industry.

If you’re talking business in general then sure. In programming it’s very hard to move from QA to dev. I’ve rarely seen it happen, and there’s usually a reason why someone goes into QA vs dev, ie they are a below average developer.

Its more a early 1960 and earlier thing

we were in a small city on the west coast. it was almost impossible for her to get hired as a dev most probably because she was a female and because she didn't have "coding" experience was made to feel worthless. She is not the type to open up an IDE and just start coding. She asks tough questions first.

Another story: comp sci 4th year - systems course. She's assigned a team. Douche c++ whiz thinks he's the shit. constantly belittles her. comes up with some idea of "redundancy" as part of the project they are coding. His idea was to have a cache storing redundant data in case the database failed. She suggested that it wouldn't work in case of power failure. Told her to be quiet because she didn't know what she was talking about...

As a guy, I have never faced this and so had no idea women faced this sort of behaviour till she decided to enter the field. Yes she didn't even know how saving a file worked till she decided to go for her comp sci degree, and so yeah she is not very confident about just opening up an ide and start coding a la "create-react-app", nor she will win any hackathons, but her concepts are rock solid. Still she is constantly underestimated.

It's a tough world in software dev if you aren't the type to constantly overestimate your worth.

"It's a tough world in software dev if you aren't the type to constantly overestimate your worth."

Well put. I was talking to a friend recently about the difference between mediocre and very successful engineers, and that quality came to mind as the biggest predictor of success. Don't think of yourself in terms of how effective you currently are, think of how effective you _could_ be. Assume that you can figure out pretty much anything given enough time. But don't be too cocky to ask for help.

Contrast that with mediocre candidates: ask them to solve something they've never done before, and they won't even try because they assume they're not good enough.

Why not? I do contract work for a big, public company, they have dozens of QA testers and every path is available for them (becoming a dev, analyst, manager, ... I've seen all). It's not even just an entry job for CS grads, many become senior testers as well and don't want to move to a dev position.

> Why not?

Because if you are a CS grad with aspirations to be a developer, taking a QA job is about the worst thing you can do. Even if you work at a company where "every path is available" (which is not particularly common), much better idea to get an actual developer job where you'll be working on coding skills.

My guy you read way too much into a comment about a manager who was not trying to nurture the career path their subordinate was aspiring for. That's part of being a manager. A manager who doesn't go to bat for people like that is a shit manager. Your response is really bizarre, like you were personally attacked.

maybe he's one of those managers. she was clear when she was hired that she wanted to be a dev. like i said, this was a branch office of a big company in a small city. many people moved from testing to dev and vice versa.

Where (else) should someone(they) have gone to get an entry-level job that starts them on the desired career path?

That's a question that I don't think has been explored.

As someone said in a sibling thread, QA has traditionally been a bad place to start your career as a developer. I saw it happen frequently in my career -- you get into QA and you are treated like a monkey (flashback of a QA manager teaching me about my terrible attitude...) It's nothing to do with gender. You can get out of QA if you are lucky, but it's pretty unusual. Even if you do, traditionally you would have had the QA stigma attached to you for a couple of years. You'll be far better off quitting and getting a job somewhere else.

Now, it's been a long time since I saw a traditional QA team. They definitely still exist, but now that there is a lot more automated testing, things have changed quite a bit. However, I would still caution beginning programmers to stay away from QA roles. It can be actively damaging to your career as a programmer, unfortunately.

What should you do first starting out? Get an entry level job as a programmer. If at all possible, go to school with a co-op or intern programme. Try out a couple of places in your first 2 years and in the last 2 try to get into a place where you might want to work. Then stay there for a couple of years after you graduate. This is by far the most effective strategy I've seen for getting into the industry.

Otherwise, try to make contacts in other ways. The first job is super important, so you need to find someone who will give you a chance. Whether you have a traditional education for a programmer or not, you need that first job. I would recommend moving to a large centre (not necessarily SV) and going to every meetup that you can manage. Make contacts. Work on a side project. Discuss your side project with people that you meet at meetups. Possibly go to a bootcamp to meet other people just starting out. Make friends and talk about programming as much as you can. Eventually, someone will give you a chance.

The most important thing: take that chance. Stay at that job for at least a year (better 18 to 24 months). Then I recommend that you find another job and leave (in that order!). For programmers, it is usually best at the beginning of your career to work in a few different places. After you have 8-10 years of experience (3-5 places), then you will have a really good basis for building your career. Again, a co-op type education can short circuit a lot of this because you can work at 2 or 3 different places while you are studying -- it is really valuable IMHO.

If you are really struggling and can't find that first position, it might be an indication that this is not the career for you. I've seen lots of people offer their services for free just to get the opportunity to "break in". Don't do that! Every person I've seen do that has been horribly misused and they have never turned it into a career (again, my experience: I'm sure that it has happened somewhere, but I submit that it is very uncommon). There are lots of jobs for programmers. This is not acting. You don't have to eat ramen for 20 years before you get your big break. If it's not happening, there is probably a reason (as difficult as it is for me to say). If you are absolutely determined to make a go of it, then the best thing to do is bet on yourself and write some code (whether as a hobby or as a business venture). If you manage to make a successful free software project or business venture you will be sure that someone will hire you later if you wish. However, this is a humbling activity -- your odds of success are extremely low. At least you are doing something for yourself, though.

I think my last piece of advice is one my father gave me when I was young. He said that he always wanted to be a scientist when he grew up and so he became a university professor. However, as he got older he realised that there were a whole bunch of jobs that he would have really enjoyed. It didn't really matter which one of them he picked. He enjoyed his career, but there he would have enjoyed many others as well. If programming is not working out, find another career. There are lots of them and they are all rewarding in their own right.

I've been at several companies where the first teams that were outsourced were the QA teams. That tells you everything you need to know about how companies view QA.

My understanding is that she'd be at the junior level as the developer. Was the position for junior? If not then this is non-story.