What is an SDET?

I've received a few e-mails today asking what the SDET position is all about. 

SDET stands for "Software Development Engineer in Test". Note the "development" bit. The position is highly technical, which is a common misconception since testing at many other (not all) software companies is frequently done by non-technical people. At Microsoft, we think of the position as a development position with a primary focus on driving and ensuring quality in our products. SDETs typically "own" one or more features in a product where they create and maintain test plans, design test scenarios, perform manual testing (though we try to automate as much as possible), write test automation, investigate test automation run results, build internal tools/applications to improve team efficiency, review SDK documentation, find and file bugs, "buddy test" and verify bugfixes, assist with sample code development, interact with customers in newsgroups and forums, etc. The list goes on and on!

As for my own experience as an SDET, I've been in this role at Microsoft for over 8 years, and I truly love the position. My first job was testing some services deep inside IE4 for delivering notifications around the app to kick off synchronization of web pages marked for offline availability. From there I moved on to testing the IActiveDesktop COM API. Then I moved to the Windows Shell team where I tested just about every public API except the common dialogs at one point or another. I've been an SDET on Team Foundation Source Control for the past 2.5 years. My current role has shifted to more of a management-of-SDETs focus, but I still get to do a little bit of everything I mentioned above every week.

I often tell people that the SDET role is great for people who love to understand how something works at a low level, aren't satisfied with taking anything at face value, love to solve problems (no matter what the problem), and love to break things. I also believe it's one of the most flexible roles in the software industry; you get exposure to a breadth of tools and technologies, applications, programming languages (today alone I've looked at C++, C#, and SQL code, wrote a cmd line tool and tweaked a GUI app, and did a bit of ASP.NET v2.0 work as well!)

If you think this sounds like fun and you're interested in living/working in the Raleigh/Durham area of North Carolina, then what are you waiting for? Take a closer look at our open positions and submit your resume today!

Did I mention North Carolina is a great place to live & work?

Comments

• Anonymous
  December 27, 2005
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