QA/SDET to Developer
Perspectives & advice from the community
u/Effective_Spite6462 on a post titled, Need guidance on switching from testing to development
shared the following advice:
Learn about your current project/product. Update your CV showing experience in creating automation framework and working with dev team in debugging the code.
Learn a framework in any programming language and start making your own project using that. You are already good with DSA you will be able to solve algorithm questions in interviews if asked.
You can explain about your current project and your personal project in interviews. Since you don't have much experience and you joined this company as a fresher, present yourself in interview such that when you were given a role that you didn't like you still didn't give up the chance on learning. Like you spent your free time on learning technology and understanding the working of current product.
At this level interviewers won't think much about what you did before but rather how good you are. If your ultimate goal is developer then you should switch for a development profile as soon as possible. If you spend much time in automation then it Wil get harder to switch to Development.
Having said that, Automation itself is a good career choice, yes it involves manual testing and automating the regression testing. You can also learn about API testing and performance testing. It's a very bright career in itself and most product based companies hire people as SDET (software development engineer in test) for Automation.
According to my research SDET in some companies get higher pay than SDE but these companies are less in number. SDET can grow very quickly but they reach peak salary very soon because peak salary of a SDET is less than that of a SDE. At that point you will come across many companies that will say they cannot pay you much because it's only testing profile.
While being a SDET you can switch your lines as Automation developer in different lines like robotics.
That's all I know from my research. I might be wrong about certain points but it is all available on internet.
TL'DR If you want to switch to Development do it now after learning a tech stack with which you are comfortable. Show them that you are eager to learn and being in unfavorable environment doesn't stop you from learning.