   Found a job, just a couple of questions.
  Hey guys,As part of my degree, I'm doing a work placement for a year. After hunting for a while, I managed to bag myself a job with SCEE R&D as a Test Developer. I'll be writing tests for PS3 and PSP operating systems in C++.I've been programming for a good few years and been using C++ mostly, however, I have no idea what to expect since I'm writing tests instead of applications. I was just wondering if anyone has had a similar role in the past or is in this type of role, and what you guys do on a daily basis.I know there'll be training and stuff, but I just wanna prepare myself before I start there.Cheers guysRay   
  Congratulations on landing the job considering you dont know what you'll be doing. Your interview skills must be >> mine ;)   ;  Congrats on the job!  I recently got a job developing code in a language I'm very bad at so we're kind of in the same boat.  You could do some Google searches on testing methods in C++, but really it's dependent upon the company you're with and their code.  They'll have their own standards and I'm assuming there are going to be others there to show you the ropes.I'm not sure if it's possible in C++, but all I've heard about testing is Unit Testing though I've always heard about it used in something like C# and VB.   ;  If I had to guess I'd say you're going to be writing unit tests.  It's not particularly hard work, you basically just write bits of code that use certain features of a module being developed and assert that the feature works correctly.  Look up unit testing.  Knowing the process will definitely help you prepare for your job.   ;  I actually have had to take classes (and have one right now) about software testing.   ;  Most places won't expect a new hire, specifically one straight out of school, to understand how things "really" work right away.  Your degree implies that you are able to learn the subject matter and has given you the background knowledge needed, but that's about it.My advice is to simply do as you're told and learn as much as you can as fast as you can once you're on the job.  You'll get far if you can show you're reliable and a fast learner.   ;  Cheers for the responses guys. I realise that there'll be training and help available and I know they're not expecting too much of me right at the beginning. But I'm hoping that a little preparation will help ease me into things as well. I got offered a similar testing job at Microsoft and they used C# and I was a lot more apprehensive about that since I'm not very experienced with it.Also, for anyone looking for a job using C++, I'd definitely recommend C++ For Games Programmers by Michael J. Dickheiser. Without that book, I really would have been lost on some of the C++ questions they asked me in my interview.Well, my job description is to write tests for the PS3 and PSP operating systems using C++. I know my C++, but never had a proper programming job, let alone in a testing environment. I will definitely read up on unit testing, maybe a little bit of blackbox and whitebox testing as well?   ;  Not sure if it is what they'll be doing, but there has been a lot of research over the last few years regarding automated coverage testing.  If you'll actually be writing test cases, this is most certainly not relevant, but it is a cool thing to poke around at if you are really interested in software testing.Sort of the start of it was with DART [directed automated random testing, which was a research toy but never really full-on implemented], and a bunch of really terrible university projects [find the DART paper on google scholar, and look for citers of it] have been spawned from it that deal with c/c++, and a few neat things like J-Unit [java, surprise] test that is in that same vein.  There's also some work on this over at microsoft research [quite possibly what you were looking at with the R&D position in software testing], and this is generally the approach they used to push forward their device driver verification tool to hardware vendors.It's a pretty simple concept, really, but pretty neat as well.   