Software QA as a position for an Aspie?

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ACG
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21 Jul 2006, 12:15 pm

Would any of you recommend QA work for Aspies as compared to software engineering? In QA, all you have to worry about is trying to explore and find bugs and maybe partially debug them, whereas with engineering there's a lot of high level design, standardization, and above all communication -- the era of the solitary programmer who can write everything by himself is over.

Thanks in advance,

ACG


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Sundy
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21 Jul 2006, 1:11 pm

I want that job.

I think that would be perfect for an aspie. My job allows me to work with different departments on occasion if the area I work in isn't particularly busy. For about a year, I worked with the QA/Editoral department for a few days every month editing status reports for clients. I mostly checked the formatting. It was the most relaxing thing in the world. The only way it would have been better would be if what I was performing QA on was software. I love to find the little imperfections. So much detail and functionality makes for a very happy aspie.



alex
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21 Jul 2006, 1:17 pm

qa has a lot of interaction with developers. also, the ones that have the least amount of interaction are usually outsourced to india.

but i don't see what's wrong with interacting with people. Communication is a good skill to work on.

I work in systems operations and supply the QA people with the infrastructure that they need to do their work. We have multiple meetings each week. I mainly just meet with other people on my team but meet with two QA managers at least once or twice a month.


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Mnemosyne
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23 Jul 2006, 8:02 pm

I currently work in a QA position, and have worked in a different QA position in previous years. I have to say that it is a great job for someone with Asperger's, depending upon how your Asperger's expresses itself, of course. There can be a lot of interaction with the developers, but since programmers tend to be your typical geeks, their social skills are generally not the greatest either.

The area where I run into a problem is that during the software development cycle, there's usually something known as "crunch time" right before the release of the software. You are generally forced into doing overtime, and often times a LOT of overtime during this phase. I've known plenty of people who worked 100 hours a week or more during "crunch time." I personally need a lot of time alone, away from people, in a quiet place to "decompress" and prevent an unmanageable buildup of stress. I can't get that during "crunch-time" and it leads to meltdowns for me. Your mileage may vary.