Silicon Valley School Opens Career Doors For Immigrant Students
By Lawrence R. Hasha

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, software quality assurance engineering is one of the fastest growing professions in the job market today. As software products have become increasingly more complex and feature packed, consumer demand for more immediate access to these products has also grown. These same consumers want products that are dependable, stable, and designed with quality assurance built in. And this market demand has created a phenomenal urgency for qualified software testers.

This boom in the software quality assurance arena does not come as a surprise to Mikhail Portnov of Mountain View, California. Portnov, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, saw the writing on the wall when, in 1994, he started what many proclaim to be the first vocational school in the country dedicated to the instruction of software quality assurance. Portnov appears somewhat nostalgic when describing how in the early days he held classes in a makeshift classroom set up in a garage. Today, Portnov Computer School is a multiple classroom environment located in a modest office complex in Mountain View, California.

Portnov, who came to the United States from Russia in 1990, was a telecommunications engineer and a specialist in intensive vocational training methodologies. Despite his background, his technical skills were obsolete and not marketable in the United States. Shortly after coming to the U.S., a friend introduced Portnov to a new and emerging profession - software testing. He hadn't work long in the business when he came to realized that the demand for qualified software testers was growing at an astounding rate and that there were not enough proficient candidates to meet the demand. Drawing upon his vocational training skills, Portnov set off to develop a curriculum that would ultimately produce hundreds of skilled testers.

Most of Portnov's students are also immigrants from the former Soviet Union. "Our students are all well educated people who have come to America only to discover that they may never again work in their previous profession."

According to Portnov, there are a few things which make Software Quality Assurance the perfect starting point for those who seek a career in computers but who have college degrees in other fields.

"Previous experience in other fields counts when companies look for software testers," portnov said. "I've been running this school for immigrants from the former Soviet Union for three years. One of our students, Yefim who is now 58, had 35 years experience as a mechanical engineer. Despite his age and very poor English he got a job at AutoDesk testing AutoCAD. His experience in mechanical engineering proved to be more important than a degree in computer science. Another student Yusif, age 60, had been a physician. He was hired after a 30 minute telephone interview. He was hired to test software which calculates doses of medication based on various criteria. By far the hottest backgrounds for SQA are finance, accounting, and bookkeeping. But I've seen a lot of success for my students who were once musicians, teachers, mathematicians, chemists, and civil and mechanical engineers as they have found their new careers in Software Quality Assurance."

Maturity in character is a big plus when hiring managers look for SQA people. "A good working knowledge of operating systems and testing methodologies are important in SQA," Portnov said, "But reliability, attention to detail, tolerance of routine, and the ability to communicate are key to the profession."

"Black Box", a term for testing techniques based upon software functionality from the users perspective, does not require knowledge of programming. While this form of testing has historically involved manual efforts to catch software bugs and glitches, the use of automation tools is becoming very popular now. Products such as QA Partner, Visual Test, and WinRunner use simplified programming languages similar to C or Visual Basic and dedicated libraries of procedures to automate frequently used or long duration tests. "Many testers, who have an interest in programming, easily switch from automated testing to real programming within one to two years. In a growing company it is relatively easy to get promoted to an entry level developer from a software tester position." Portnov said.

Portnov appeared proud when he described the SQA market as being dominated by Russian immigrants. But he quickly added that his pride was in his students and the new lives they have found. "I know there are many similarities amongst the Russian immigrants and those from other countries such as India. Especially when it comes to our strong educational backgrounds, math and science in particular, and our professional attitude and ethics, hard work and devotion to quality," Portnov stated. "I am just astounded to look back at my students after a year to see how four months of training has changed their lives forever."