My last job was as a QA Analyst backing up an established team of 3 (or 4) programmers. Development, documentation and process were very well defined, though the QA was very basic. It was all manual with only the scantiest of program assistance for the documentation side.

The job I am taking is to set up QA for a team of 40 programmers. Currently the developers test their own work as there is no Quality Assurance group. This is just about the worst way to go about things, except having no testing at all. I will be defining the development, documentation and process for the newly forming QA group.

Yeah, you read that right. I am the man. I'll be going into a company and starting up their formal Quality Assurance from scratch. Once we're set up we'll expand the QA group to provide comprehensive coverage. The rule of thumb is one analyst for each three developers so while I'm the sole analyst I'll only be concentrating on top projects.

Challenging? You bet. Rewarding. Oh, yeah. Will I be a busy boy? Damn straight!

I'm incredibly excited over this job and unbefuckinglievably relieved to be back in the provider seat for my family.