Top test engineer skills needed to get the job.

What are the top 3 traits or skills every test engineer must have to excel?

Can you suggest any tips or insights to develop your test engineer expertise?

hello,
this is the first time i come across this test engineer forum.

I think this site going to help me improve some areas.

Thanks,
HK

six sigma black belt certification
programming: vb, c/c++, c#, any scripting language

EXPERIENCE-- it's a job that you need a lot of background in order to anticipate "what can go wrong" with DUT, operators, customers. And develop a test plan to capture these issues.

ABILTY TO CONSTANTLY LEARN -you need to know a little bit about a lot of different disciplines, to improvise and adapt techniques as required to the situation. Doesn’t matter much what you know today in a few years it will be obsolete.

SALESMENSHIP– as a test guy you can only do one of two things: a) give bad news-the DUT failed; b) give good news the device passed—(“why did we spent so much effort and $$ to test then?”) You have to constently justify yourself to Qtr-to-Qtr bean counters that do not understand and bad product on the market is a bad rap that puts everyone’s job at risk.

1- Background of test fixture design.
2- C/C++, VB, and/or LabVIEW.
3- RF, Analog, and Digital electronics.

1.) You must be able to create your test plans and procedures from Specifications. Testing without specifications is just about pointless.

2.) You must be able to think like, to have empathy for, the end user of the finished product. Is the GUI clear and unambiguous? Are the controls simple, logically laid out, clearly labeled?

3.) You must be able to establish report with the design and development engineers. You have to write your bug reports and describe defects without annoying these people. You have to suggest improvements without sounding condescending or arrogant.

Host said: What are the top 3 traits or skills every test engineer must have to excel?

Can you suggest any tips or insights to develop your test engineer expertise?

I have a question: Suggestions where/how to gain testing automation tools skills? Online universities or tech schools?

Mike Wascher in El Cajon, California said: I have a question: Suggestions where/how to gain testing automation tools skills? Online universities or tech schools?

A lot of the most important tools can only be gained by being allowed to dive in head first, such as documenting through an entire development life cycle and how to decide what to test 100% and what to leave to validation (for manufacturing test). In the end, your product will be paper.

Other than that, assuming you have a fair education in electronics and hardware, programming is the key skill that you can develop on your own. C, C++, C#, LabVIEW, and Java are all good tools to have in your belt. I started my career with LabVIEW, but have expanded my experience by developing mock test platforms that emulate the interface and functionality of my LabVIEW programs in C++ and C#.

If you can find the driver specification for a peripheral device you have, try writing functions to query the device for basic information. This will give you some practice in interfacing with peripherals and external libraries.

Great comments. Does anyone recomment any recent books on the leading edge software/webware testing technologies?