This is going to be hard.

Not like “I have to figure out how to extract blood from a stone” difficult, but more like “How do I put into words that I love what I do?” difficult.

Don’t get me wrong:

There are definitely times that I want nothing more than to turn in my notice, sell all my worldly belongings, and go crabbing in Alaska. The frustrations of this position can be plentiful and painful. I loathe every failed test, every odd null-pointer exception, every whitespace character accidentally left in a property file. Still, at the end of the day, what would I really rather do that could provide for my family the way that software QA does?

I get to pull code apart, look at lines that people much smarter than me have spent hours putting together in such a way that it should complete some specific task, and when I smell that code smell, when I get on the path of some function that doesn’t really make sense, I get to be a part of making something better.

That’s what it’s truly about, right?

Taking something that works (ish, sometimes), getting to look at it with a fresh set of eyes, and inevitably finding a way to make it better is not something that many people get to do for a living. I am blessed to be able to take my passion for pulling things apart to see how they work and apply it toward a vocation that provides for my family and keeps me using that grey matter between the ears.

What would I prefer to do?

I have always liked wrenching on cars, but I hate having busted knuckles.
I enjoy working outdoors, but I’m not really a fan of smelling like BO. Also, sometimes it’s hot out. Or cold. Or rainy.

I love the challenge

Being a software QA engineer is a great way to keep me thinking and on my toes. Just about every day, I come up against something that pushes me outside of my comfort zone and makes me better because of it.