As part of our Hangout series, in February we held an event to find out what life is like as a test consultant/independent tester.

Continuing our series of open discussions on various aspects of life as a tester, we explored in depth the life of a test consultant with two guys with years of experience in the role. Duncan Nisbet and Simon “Peter” Schrijver are both experienced test consultants with a number of years experience in both short and long-term contracts.

What we discussed?

Topics that were covered in the Hangout include:

• Starting Your Business
• How to Become Employed as a Self-employed tester
• Why would you want to become a test consultant?
• Job Security
• Money and taxes
• Training and development
• Working away from home
• Career development
• Holidays

About The Experts

Duncan Nisbet

“Duncan Nisbet is a tester who believes development teams &  the larger business can be smarter at  working together. He coaches Testers, Programmers & Business folk on how they can help each other communicate & collaborate in order to deliver software which will actually help to solve the problem. His efforts are focussed both during the everyday development or in team workshops which he facilitates. Duncan also blogs at duncannisbet.co.uk & lurks on Twitter @duncnisbet

Simon “Peter” Schrijver

Simon is a very experienced all-round tester, who has worked since 1997 as tester, test coordinator and test manager. He has several years of experience using SBTM as a test approach. Since 2005, Simon has worked as an independent consultant. He visits annually at least two conferences and two training sessions to keep his knowledge up to date and where necessary, broaden/deepen his knowledge. Recently Simon has started speaking at conferences to share his experiences related to his work as a tester. Simon is also an active member of TestNet and (co-founder) of the Dutch Exploratory Workshop on Testing. In these communities of enthusiastic testers he is active with peers and discuss with them on the testing profession to keep up to date and improve them selves. Simon blogs at Simon Says No More and can be found on Twitter @SimonSayNoMore

Find Out more about the Hangout series here.