Due to circumstance I have been forced aligned to testing group with in Accenture. I don't mind testing but in terms of salary and career progression are my options limited? I am at consultant level.

well in a few years you could move on to an outsourced testing shop in India.... nuff said?

Testing is a great career path! Within 5 years or so you could become a senior DBA, leading on to Partner!What are you testing by the way? Tell us more about your work.

All depends what your aspirations for career progression are. Testing is a great way to get deep system knowledge, not necessary technical (you are not fixing the bugs, you are finding them) - but functional. This can lead you - should you want it to - down the role of Solution Architect - managing a deployment team. Alternatively, you may potentially align yourself to Sales, understanding the offering is key to selling its capabilities. I'm convinced that within Accenture, and this is backed up by my own experiences, the only limit to your career progression and your salary is yourself. If you expand your network, you know when to push and when to stay quiet, you seize the opportunities as they arise, you can take your career in any direction you want.

Go on. Be a Tig..errr Tester.

Grrrrrrrrow up!

Ive been in testing for nearly 8 years of my overall 10 years majority in performance testing. Try to move into Non Functional or Performance Testing. It will build your Technical skills. Use Functional testing to build Business knowledge. Good Luck!

thats what you get tommy, next time don't align yourself with the testing group nubi woulda picked corporate strategy group if i were you... but if you wanna be a test monkey, so be it tommy!!!

Tommys - please see my previous post of a slightly more mature outlook on the role of a tester...

Manual testing; scripting, execution etc. Is the worst thing ever! If you are managing teams then not too bad. As long as you don't have to do the work. As a consultant grade you will most probably be managing a couple of analysts and a team in IDC. So good experience. Like the guy above said in Accenture you can do very well through testing.

It's not like you're being forced into prostitution! It's worse, it's testing!!!

Tommys - as I said - stick with it and you'll be fine.

Accenture guy! Don't try to sugar coat this and pretend like everything will be allright if you get put into testing.You know we are suppose to be helping tommys out with this problem, not trying to make delusional comments about how everything is okay and how great it is to work within testing.Listen tommys, theres a reason why testing is getting offshored to places like india. You would be creating career suicide if you think you can go into testing and their won't be any implications to the growth of your career.Don't listen to the bad advice accenture guy is giving you and get the hell out of testing before you get branded as another test monkey. Trust me, I know tons of ppl that went into testing and they are wishing they never went in it.

Well the benefit of this forum is that you get many different points of view. Rather than rise to the rather babyish jibes of "Accenture Guy Sux" (test monkey? Come on - grow up!) - perhaps I can just add that I have seen many, many people move onwards and upwards who have previously been testing. I have done testing myself and, to be honest, I considered it my "rite of passage". Furthermore, the management of a test phase is one of the most challenging roles in a deployment.I don't feel it's for us to tell you what your career aspirations are. In fact, it's also difficult to say whether testing will, or will not, influence your future career choice - when we don't know what they are. However if you career choice is within Accenture, I can tell from factually, that there will be no issues at all in your career progression.

I would be a bit careful in testing. The majority of the employment market will pidgeon-hole you as a tester (some have called it a 'test monkey'). You do , however, have one advantage: you are in accenture, and, whilst you will have to play your cards carefully and skillfully, the opportunities are there to move progress your career vertically and/or horizontally. Should you leave accenture ,however, i think it'll be tough for you to get a non-testing position as the market is still not that fantastic ( i.e. they will look more at functional skills than transferrable skills).

I saw lots of people 'stuck' in testing and lots of people who wanted to be in testing.Personally, I hated every second of it. I waited for the end of the test cycle and managed to get myself transitioned onto a project that better suited my skills. If the client knew that people like me were testing their new software, they would have pulled the plug on the engagement. Not for me at all!My career is going fine. The testers' careers are going fine. We're moving in very different directions.

I used to work at Accenture, and the advice given from Accenture guy sounds very similar to what I was fed Ask yourself the following questions – Do I actually like testing? Did I spend the best part of 20 years in education so that I can perform test related activities? Do I think that the testing skill set has a future? If the answer to these questions is yes, then follow Accenture guys’ advice and best of luck to youIf like me you joined Accenture wanting to gain a breadth of relevant experience then you might want to think twice about testing. Forget rites of passage, “earning your stripes” or any other nonsense that you hear from managers who are effectively trying to shoehorn over qualified grads into dead end roles – Testing skills are not relevant. Why do you think the test activity is going off-shore? Once you have been pigeon holed as a tester in Accenture, it will be hard to escape the stigma. Once you try and leave Accenture and have 5 years of test execution / test management / offshore related skills, guess what type of jobs you will be offered? Have a look around you – look at your manager’s job. Do you want to be attending defect calls and beasting Indian testers in 3 years time? If the answer to these questions is no, then I suggest you get aligned elsewhere