Test Engneers

Most people dealing with Automated Test Equipment (ATE) call themselves “test engineer’s” (TE) or test people. However, since there is typically no degree’s in test engineering, they get degrees in Electrical engineering or software engineering or computer science and engineering and then are recruited in the “test group”. I’ve seen most TE’s come out of the group with EE degrees, a lot of SW Engineers don’t like to touch hardware. But then a lot of EE’s feel that doing software makes them dirty or is FM (Freaking Magic) and only took minimal, how to code classes in college.

Since most TE’s are out of EE the software portion of ATE is “hacked” out (the old-school meaning of hack, to bang out code until it works) the code is less than optimal. In other-words, it works for the normal case and little else.

Some people who have software degrees or have been doing software for a long time work toward having more software discipline in there ATE code, but it still tends to be lacking in most area’s. Software tools tend to go unused or limited use, some believe an IDE is all that is needed.

There’s more to developing software than just an IDE and some time. Tools are available to help develop code. I think software tools aren’t used in test due to a lack of understanding, lack of knowledge, and lack of patience.