Gem Hill made a really interesting episode of her podcast, talking about how she became a tester, and invited people to speak about their stories.

Like almost every other tester, I kinda fell into it by accident. Like Gem (spoiler alert) I started by testing, realising I quite enjoyed doing it and had a natural talent for it, and so decided to become a tester.

Almost by coincidence, the company I worked at was both moving the platform to a language I couldn’t — and still can’t — grasp, and building up their test team. Given I did some testing previously (agile, people!) and didn’t completely suck at it, the switch was a no brainer.

The day before I was due to move team, my soon-to-be manager checked how I was. My response was a barely understandable panicked mash of worry.

The day I moved, and the subsequent days afterwards, I found myself talking with the others in the team like I’d been there forever. That all testers seem to have the same sense of humour generally helped.

It was that week I realised I was no longer testing: I was a tester. Almost two years later, I’m starting to scale back the amount of development I do.

(It was that week I was also introduced to Inside Number 9, which after a few episodes I decided was far too creepy…)