[Closed] Software Testing - Agile, ISTQB

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I am a software tester.

ISTQB foundation and intermediate are fairly easy, advanced is quite hard.

As for AGILE it really depends, some places do it right and some others just use it as an excuse for being chaotic

A couple of years should be enough to gain experience.

Lots of jobs around especialy contractors

In order to comment on the better paid elsewhere question, we'd need to know your current salary and geographical location.

What do you do at the moment?
What sort of testing? GOOD automated test suite development is valuable. From my experience there are a LOT of bad testers out there who seem to enjoy testing the hard way. I may be wrong but it looks to me like its where people drift into if they aren't very good at development. Actually if you are a good developer you will make much better tests and a good tester is better at developing as a result - we no longer keep people just doing testing for that reason. If you're being offered the chance to manage them you may well be getting the group of unmanageable people that nobody else wants. I would only consider it if there is a clear vision for the role of testing and how you make it an integral part of the business - otherwise you will just be seen as the barrier to release, and a "necessary evil". You presumably already have a handle on the culture in the place so will know which it is.

Oh, and if I was your employer and caught wind that you were taking this and their training to make leaving easier I'd be suggesting you start looking now!

Buy 'The Art of Software Testing' by Glenford J Myers. Don't worry about getting the latest edition. It breaks down all of the principles and they still stand today. I used the book when I was first managing testing and it set me up well. I was the outsider in a small organization of people who had been there a long time. Regardless of modern tools, management methodologies etc, the principles still stand.
Automated testing is fantastic, IF the management of that testing and the systems used is tight. Good testers are not failed developers, but some people do drift into testing. Anyone who assumes testers are failed something-else should be shown the error of their ways (and code).

Thanks for replies. I'll try and answer the questions posed:

I'm currently in a completely unrelated field in the public sector so would be coming at it blind.

Working in the North my salary is approx 25k.

The culture would certainly be myself as a barrier to development with the developers somewhat precious re their work and any perceived criticism of it which I guess is understandable.

The testing would be largely manual from what I understand.

I'm leaning towards declining it to be honest.

Thanks again.

why on earth is your employer asking you to lead a team when you know nothing about it and sound like you have limited interest?

if the testing is largely manual, and they are trying to use agile approaches, the team (and you) will be in trouble (maybe they don't know it yet). You need automation to be able to cope with the iterative nature of the work. And ideally you wouldn't have a separate 'test' team anyways...

If your salary is £25k tear their arm off. Good automation engineers can earn £300-450 a day.

Wondering if I might have been trolled.

I was a software tester for a few years, I got a bit bored of it tbh. One, I was usually running the same test suites on each new software release every few months, so not much variety. Two, I was always under pressure to get everything passed ASAP because the testing came at the end of the cycle and no one wanted to delay release. Three, the test environment could be a real PITA to setup, involving various bits of kit in different locations, which meant I could waste days without getting any tests done, and end up under more pressure to finish. Four documentation, writing test plans, documenting results wasnt much fun either....
But its a good way to learn a product.