What makes a good tester

This week was exciting, as this Monday a new person joined the Visual Studio Indigo Designer QA team - Jeff Hua.  Other than being a smart and funny guy, what makes him special is that he lives and works in Shanghai, China.

While he is ramping up on testing at Microsoft and getting a feel for the type of work we will be ding for the next release of Visual Studio I will be acting as his mentor.  To be honest, I am really excited at the chance to mentor another tester because it gives me a chance to reflect on what I have been doing for the past 20 months here at Microsoft. 

Namely, I had to answer the question what makes a good tester?  I am sure a lot of people around the internet would say it is accuracy of bug writing reports, clarity of status mails, etc.  I told Jeff that the one thing that makes a good tester is: not taking crap.

Sure the job of a tester entails writing stable automation to verify the product, as well as reporting regular status and filing bugs.  But the purpose of the tester is to fight – tooth and nail – for product quality.

So, here’s to helping to show Jeff how to do just that for the next release of Visual Studio! 

And, in case you were wondering, 5PM in Seattle is 8AM the next day in Shanghai.