BANGALORE, INDIA: Software Testing is one of the emerging area in IT industry which is rapidly growing. Increased competition and customer demand has made software testing a key operation which demands nowadays top talents and pay packets.

As software users become "certificate-conscious", developers are queuing up to use the services of independent software testing (IST) service firms. S Janardhanan, vice president - Technology and Quality, ITC Infotech talks to Divya Girish of CIOL, about the testing domain, scope of current testing market for job opportunities and how the entire domain has evolved over year.

CIOL: Can you brief us on your software testing portfolio?

S Janardhanan: Our software testing service portfolio consists of the independent validation and verification services, functional testing, performance testing including stress testing and soak testing (of enterprise applications such as ERP and Custom developed applications), test automation using automated testing tools, quantitative testing, and user interface testing using UI testing technologies.

CIOL: How would the current testing market help fresh engineering graduates?

SJ: Software testing projects provide an opportunity to understand typical areas where developers inject defects and help overcome such areas when the fresh graduates are deployed in software development projects. It also helps them in understanding business systems, test case development, test execution methods and processes.

CIOL: How do you evaluate the career prospects for testing professionals in India? Why more and more engineering graduates opt for software testing in comparison with software development?

SJ: Most of the fresh campus graduates do require to go through a strong foundation and technical training in software development platforms before they become operational. Our own experience does indicate 6 to 9 months of build processes before a fresh graduate is deployed in projects.

However, for testing engagements, the build processes are fairly quick. Over and above this, demand for testing is increasing even during the economic recession and hence possible reasons for engineering graduates to opt for testing services.

CIOL: How do you see the testing market growing? What is your projection for the market size five years from now?

SJ: The Global software Testing market is estimated to be $17 billion dollars. The market opportunity for the Indian offshore testing companies is currently $5 billion, estimated to rise to $10 billion in 2010. The software-testing arena would require 25,000-30,000 professional in the next one year as per the IDC report.