If you have been watching Microsoft's quadrant of blogspace recently you would have noticed an increase in the number of less public faces taking a stab at writing a blog. I'm really thankful for this because I believe that I can become a better developer by observing how successful product shipping organisations work. Shipping quality product is a big part of being successful which is why I subscribed to the Software Test Engineering @ Microsoft feed.
Reading this blog entry by Chris Dickens confirmed by long held view that being a software test engineer at Microsoft has to be one of the coolest jobs in the world. Now it might not seem like your cup of tea so let my explain my thought process. First, Microsoft appears to be fertile ground for new ideas which means you would often get the opportunity to road test new software before anyone else. Now I could stop there, but I wont. The second thing is that testers get to bounce around the coolest part of the software equation which is understanding the customers pain and helping prove that the software makes things better.
While Microsoft may have a handle on what it really means to be a good tester, I don't think the rest of the industry does. If I can get my thoughts organised over the course of the next week or so I might make a few posts on "what I reckon".