
Ask HN: Is there a role or industry that needs good bug finders? - nofinator
tldr: I am good at finding bugs. Dare I say, it&#x27;s the most enjoyable part of my job. Is there a role or industry where this skill could be my primary contribution?<p>--<p>I started my career 20 years ago as QA but for the last decade have been a backend&#x2F;data engineer. I am highly skilled at investigating difficult bugs and identifying or implementing a solution. I&#x27;ve done it for glitchy bugs in new development code and deep bugs in production legacy code where the original developers left years earlier.<p>I have a lot of patience, tool experience, and respect for this process. I&#x27;ve seen other developers get flustered or point fingers when they spend time on someone else&#x27;s code that&#x27;s not working. But to me, it&#x27;s an interesting puzzle that I&#x27;d like to solve. I put myself in the developers&#x27; shoes to understand why their code was written the way it was.<p>Most of all, I really enjoy this task! At several jobs I&#x27;ve gladly taken up stories and bug tickets for work like this while my teammates run away and want to work on new development.<p>I&#x27;m considering doing this full-time. Is that possible? Perhaps as a contractor or working for a specific sector?<p>Is there even a name for this kind of role when I look at job openings?<p>Finally, is this good for my long-term career? Sometimes I think &quot;yes&quot; because there will always be bugs. But sometimes I think &quot;no&quot; because I might be pigeon-holing myself into a specific role that isn&#x27;t known for being flashy.<p>Thanks!
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wwwwewwww
You want to look for Software Tester / Software Test Engineer positions.

Microsoft used to hire a lot of people from all walks of life for this
position. However a decade ago or so they combined this position with the
Software Design Engineer in Test position, which is a combination of software
tester and a software engineer who works on test automation or testing
infrastructure. There are teams who really value SDETs who are good at bug
finding and consider them worth their weight in gold.

The tricky thing is that it's very hard to train someone for a software tester
role. You can train someone to go through the motions, but people who are
really good at it show amazing creativity and will find many bugs that an
experienced but average tester will not. This is definitely a field where a
10x engineer concept is not a myth.

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arkadiyt
> Is there a role or industry where this skill could be my primary
> contribution?

Yes, you can be a security researcher / bug bounty hunter.

