Just as there are developers who are orders of magnitude more productive and creative than other developers, so are there testers who are similarly outstanding. We all have our opinions about what constitutes an outstanding tester. I believe one contributing factor is a matter of perspective, that a great tester approaches software in a different way than a developer.

This is not to say that an individual can't have both perspectives, or that one is superior to the other.

I ask because there are times when a tester will find a bug using a use case that I would never consider, and I wonder where the idea came from. Or a tester devises a way of testing something so that is unorthodox, clever, and perfect for the job at hand, and again I wonder what led them to there.

> 
> How is a developer's perspective different from a tester's? I believe the question is relevant to interviewing and perhaps to continuing education and an organization's culture.
> 
> 
>