About 6 months ago, I joined a software development team as a test engineer.
My first assignment was to explore the website that the team had built and find bugs in it. On clicking through the website, my first impression was that it was pretty good. It appeared that I would have a hard time finding bugs.
However, in my 6 weeks, I found and documented 34 bugs. Further, the developers on the team thought I was an expert at testing. They would hand me their work, with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation, given how good I was at finding fault with it.
I hadn’t turned into an expert tester in 6 weeks – far from it. I merely looked at the website with the intention of finding bugs. This intention gave me a different pair of eyes – ones that were good at spotting if something was off.
The intent which which we set out into the world often imbues us with new senses. An intent to write a blogpost everyday helps me notice more ideas than I can write about. An intent to cook better helps me discern what makes a dish at a restaurant taste so good. An intent to find bugs makes me seem like an expert at software testing.
Observations 