Jamaal T.

Knowing where you stand after following your plan remains important to determining your next steps and how to progress in the future. Be critical and honest to yourself and to the evaluation results whether they are positive or negative. It's easy to tamper with the criteria when I mentioned you should be fluid, but don't tweak them just to make your results positive. Take each piece of information as a learning and adapt on your projects needs.

With technologies constantly being introduced into the tech space, QA should remain agile, fluid and flexible. Defining your criteria can be useful and experienced QA professionals in relation to the tech space should be able to adapt and balance the rigidity that can come from a set criteria. Don't get bogged down by if your criteria isn't pitch perfect! But reflect on the fact it may evolve throughout the progression of your project.

Location and the industry you’re working in or applying for will vary greatly. For example getting a Silicon Valley salary in Spain for a software testing job has rather low odds. Tech jobs in general do have better starting rates than most industries, but it’s simply not a one-size applies to all. Salaries are relative to each country and they do change slightly based on the specific path within tech.

Look at the market, do your research and be critical on yourself. If you know that you lack in certain areas, then take the steps needed to up-skill and apply those new skills to your current job. Use this to improve within your team and highlight this during your performance evaluation.

Some are more equipped with the negotiating skills than others when it comes to talking salary. Come prepared and practice. If you’ve researched and practiced then you’ll be far better off than someone who hasn’t prepared. On the other end, if you're happy with the salary then there's no need to negotiate for the sake of "negotiating". Other benefits, entitlements may compensate your happily for your current ongoing or projected tasks, many of which is subjective to our own personal aspirations.

In the same way companies compete with each other, you need to remember your competing with hundreds of other people for the same job. What landed you todays job, will require continual growth along the way if you want to stay relevant in the growing market, especially when it comes to tech.