Although effective testing is a critical necessity to successfully produce reliable and dependable software systems, there are few guidelines or formal criteria to determine whether an individual is qualified or has the potential to become an effective software tester. At AT&T, the authors are developing a program to certify software testers by defining a career path that a software tester can follow in going from trainee to certified software test engineer to software testing specialist.
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Weyuker et al. (2000) studied this question.