What next in the career map for a Lead QA Engineer

Posted by chandran on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by chandran
Published on 2010-01-04T08:16:03Z Indexed on 2010/04/06 2:03 UTC
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I am a Lead QA Engineer in a Software company and at a stage in my career wherein i need to plan my next move.

Option 1: The very obvious move would be to stay as a QA Lead and eventually become a QA Manager. But i don't see very good prospects/future after that. Or am i wrong?

Option 2: I love programming/coding, though i haven't spent a whole lot of time on that. So a direct move to becoming a Software Developer is not possible. Will moving to Test Automation eventually lead me to development. Even so, am i looking at step-down in pay and career-level.

Option 3: Moving to Product Management. Is this even possible and if so what would be the best approach.

Appreciate all your responses in advance. Thanks.

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