Why I Switched my day work from Programming to Automated Testing? Part 3: Too Productive to Continue working as a Programmer

When becoming much better in programming, it will be hard to code the old way.

The articles in this series

• More Challenging
• More Fun
• Too productive to continue working as a programmer
• Better Career(s)

I remembered this scene from the Oscar-winning movie “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. The main character (a young lady) had a martial arts master, but she was self-taught from the book secretly. One day, she found out that she had become better than her master. Her first feeling was “fear”. I understand that, as I had a similar feeling when I found myself much more productive than my colleagues. The reason: I have been practising automated testing diligently for a few months.

Stand out far above your peers usually is not a good thing in a company, unless you have full control

In 2005, I pair programmed with a celebrity programmer (who came as an external consultant) for about 8 weeks. In a sense, he was my mentor and master. He taught me Agile…