SilkTest jobs for QA Testers.

The table below compares the demand for SilkTest 2010, HP QTP 11 and Selenium skills in QA Tester jobs advertised across US and India in October of 2010. I compared the job postings for QA Engineer position with automated testing tool experience on the following job search engines: dice.com, sfbay.craigslist.org/sof/ (only for San Francisco Bay Area) and naukri.com

	dice.com	craigslist.org	naukri.com
SilkTest	35	6	15
QTP	560	9	302
Selenium	299	57	97

As you could see, Silktest is lagging behind of QTP or Selenium on all job markets, but I think I have an explanation why this is happening. There are plenty of QA Tester job postings like

Required skills - Test automation, SaaS, SQL, performance testing, Load Runner and QuickTest Professional, Silk Test, Java, Visual Basic.

Perhaps I should look for Silk not SilkTest, even it would include results for Silk Performer. Unfortunately as you can see below the change is not as big as I expected. I could explain why Selenium is so popular in Silicon Valley. As an open source project, Selenium is available for free and has been used for testing at many Silicon Valley companies like Google, Yahoo, and eBay. There are also a lot of startup companies not willing to spend money of SilkTest license or QTP license. That's why there are a lot of job postings for QA Testers with Selenium testing skills in Silicon Valley. In the same time I am still not sure why SilkTest lags behind of HP QTP on national markets. Does anyone have any ideas?

	dice.com	craigslist.org	naukri.com
Silk	69	6	87
QTP	560	9	302
Selenium	299	57	97

SilkTest Jobs

In the past few months, everyone has noticed a major shakeout in tech industry. Many Bay Area technology companies announced major layoffs or even have shut their doors. As result, salaries and hourly rates are going down. I just noticed on Bay Area Craigslist this open SilkTest contractor position. Don't you think that $40 per hour is very low for QA Tester with the knowledge of SilkTest, Python, Perl, VBScript and C++?

Location: Santa Clara
Duration: 4.5 month
Rate: $40/hr

Solid software company is looking for a QA Tester with solid SilkTest experience.

Must have:
- Authoring, implementing, and maintaining automation test libraries and scripts using SilkTest - Automation experience
- Ability to work with QA engineers to convert manual test procedures into automated systems
- Scripting experience (Python, Perl, VBScript)
- Programming with C++ is ideal

SilkTest Question 63: Does Silk Test have any future?

Many test automating tools for functional testing like Silk Test haven't changed as much as development tools in the recent years. Where is integration with unit testing tools and source control tools? Where is cool keyword coloring and code refactoring to simplify program structure?

Let's take a look in biased opinions of one of the Borland employee posted not long ago:

I believe Borland is more dedicated to meeting QA tool users' (your) needs than any other "big" vendor in the QA automation market.

SilkTest is not going away. It is powerful, adaptable and proven. We will continue to "reward" loyal customers by protecting their investment with expanded functionality. We've released two major (SilkTest 8, SilkTest 2006) and at least 3 minor versions of SilkTest since the acquisition of Segue. Rest assured that another major release is forthcoming (no dates can be shared publicly at this time).

4Test is not going away. It is easy to learn, useful and provides extremely robust, easily maintainable test scripts. Other test tool vendors have introduced "new" products (and charged for them) at the cost of alienating users of their "old" products. I believe this is a terrible way to treat loyal users.

Customers want scripting in common languages --- we hear that loud and clear.

SilkTest is arguably the most technically powerful functional automation tool in the market (I knew this prior to my joining Borland - but, of course, I'm biased)

Borland has consolidated development to 4 main dev labs - 1 dedicated soley to Silk products - to reduce costs and maximize efficiency (using our own ALM principles). Segue had segregated development teams that did not facilitate good integration, innovation or agile development. We now have a large, dedicated and experienced team on SilkTest co-located with all the other Silk development, and we have a full and exciting roadmap!

Borland technical support is a marked improvement over Segue support of the past (from reputation and customer feedback, not personal knowledge).

I'm hoping that I would be able to see all above implemented in the near future. And I hope that it will be true. At least may be Borland would update SilkTest user's guide and perhaps starts to print SilkTest books ...

Again on SilkTest Job Opportunities

The Indian competitor of job portal Dice.com - Naukri has today thirty three job postings for engineers with Silk Test knowledge comparing with seventy four on Dice.com. As usual job details are not very specific on both sites. For example the following short job description is not clear about position at all. Do they want to hire QA Lead or just QA Tester? Do they hope to use all automated tool in the same time?

Job Description
- This QA lead / Testing lead / QA Tester will analyze the test requirements specifications and contributes in developing the test strategy.
- Develops test scenarios.
- Periodically reviews the test cases developed and the test execution results.

Desired Profile
- QA Lead / Testing Lead / QA Tester with minimum four yrs of experience out of which at least 1+ year of experience in any of the automated testing tools (Winrunner, Loadrunner, Visual Test, Rational Robot, SilkTest etc.).
- Engineering Graduate/MCA
- Must understand SDLC.

Current SilkTest Job Opportunities

Senior QA Engineer - Automation

LOCATION: San Francisco, CA

OVERVIEW: In this position, the Senior QA Engineer will be helping to deliver high quality products to our websites, on schedule, in a fast paced environment. You will be responsible for expanding and maintaining our functional test automation suite, as well as designing, building and executing load, performance and reliability tests. As a senior member of the team, you will be mentoring and training junior QA engineers.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design, build and execute load, performance and reliability tests.
• Build upon and maintain existing SilkTest automation suite.
• Create test plans, and provide estimates for project scheduling.
• Investigate new test methodologies and tools.
• Mentor junior team members.

BACKGROUND:

• Understanding and knowledge of software development life cycle and software engineering best practices.
• A solid understanding of testing methodologies.
• Demonstrated knowledge of Internet technologies and experience testing web applications.
• Experience developing automated testing harnesses.
• Experience with SilkTest, and facility with its 4Test Scripting language.
• Experience with load testing tools, JMeter a plus.
• Demonstrated knowledge of databases and facility with SQL.
• Facility with and knowledge of Windows platforms (Win9x, Win2K, Win XP).
• Knowledge of UNIX servers and environments (Solaris).
• Some experience with J2EE containers (Resin, Tomcat, Jetty, etc.)
• Additional programming experience a plus, e.g: Scripting languages such as shell scripting, Perl, Ant, etc; Compiled languages like C, C++ or Java.
• I18N (internationalization) and L10N (localization) testing experience.
• Good technical troubleshooting skills.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.

Please send your cover letter with compensation requirements and resume via email to jobs@planetoutinc.com (no attachments please). Please include the job title: Senior QA Engineer

Open position for automation tool specialist

More then two productive testing months have passed and three more fully tested software applications were shipped to customers of our Software Quality Assurance department since I compared the job postings for QA Engineer position with automated testing tool experience on the following job search engines: dice.com and craigslist.org (for craigslist search is local, only for San Francisco Bay Area)

Dice.com

• Silktest - 68; 164; 175; 180; 184.
• Winrunner - 514; 519; 537; 516; 460.

Craigslist.org

• Silktest - 17; 23; 26; 33; 17.
• Winrunner – 28; 27; 30; 30, 21

The tracking of job posting started in April, 2006. The statistics for August and September were missed due to performance impact of testing and production environment issues.

Again on the job market for automated testing tools

The following results appeared after four months tracking the job postings for QA Engineer with automated testing tool experience on fashionable job search engines dice.com and craigslist (the craigslist search is local, only for San Francisco Bay Area)

I started to track since April, 2006 and as we see job market looks steady for both tools.

Dice.com
Silktest – 68; 164; 175; 180.
Winrunner - 514; 519; 537; 516.

Craigslist
Silktets – 17; 23; 26; 33.
Winrunner - 28; 27; 30; 30.

By the way today Hewlett-Packard announced that it will acquire management software company Mercury Interactive for $52 a share, or $4.5 billion in cash. Will it give boost for Winrunner and Quick Test Pro?

The job market for automation testing tools

The jobs postings for quality assurance engineers from popular job search engines shows that Winrunner again leads in the virtual race.

The search result from dice.com on June,28 2006:

• silktest - 175 jobs
• winrunner - 537 jobs

Both tools added around 10-15 job request comparing with last month.

The search result from Craigslist for San Francisco Bay Area on May,28 2006:

• silktest - 26 jobs
• winrunner - 30 jobs

Both tool added a few job and it seems job market is still going up.

Silktest Question 6 : Silktest or Winrunner?

You don't know any of them and try to select one to study. Look at the following search result:

Search result from dice.com on April,13 2005:

• silktest - 68 jobs
• winrunner - 514 jobs

Search result from s.f. bayarea craigslist on April,13 2005:

• silktest - 17 jobs
• winrunner - 28 jobs

I will update this table monthly.