Been coding for 14 years commercially and feel like doing something else for a change, short term or long term I haven't decided, but it seems I have no response from recruitment agents for my expression of interest, is that they don't understand that devs also writes tests or something else?
Yep. It's 2017, and nearly everyone still operates on keywords. Telling them you can do testing is not the same as demonstrating how you've been a test manager, triaged issues, worked with organisations to prioritise and retest, assisted with deployment etc.
Whilst on the subject of ticking boxes in HR checklists, can invest a couple of hundred dollars and get the ISTQB foundation certificate. Many roles require that, from a box ticking point of view at least. Also look into the context driven testing / rapid software testing ideas, which are good at explaining what you will implicitly know and do as an experienced dev in a way that demonstrates that knowledge and enthusiasm of testing to an outsider. They also help you look at development from a testing mindset, rather that a developer that also writes tests.
As a dev already, you will be fine with automated testing frameworks (Selenium the main one) and api and webservices testing, that is very much in demand.
I am not able to provide successful hints but would like to share experience at WLG. Hope you can prepare better and make it smoothly.
Switching between development and automation test (or SDET) is common in other countries. However, you'd better be ready to be SERIOUSLY questioned about why moving (or moved) to test in interview. It is difficult for me to convince people that automation test (with CI/CD and all the toys) is interesting and full of innovation/funs for a senior developer. It might be a bit helpful if candidate can highlight previous experiences of UT (usually done by dev) , performance measurement (not improvement).
My retrospective on interviews shows that talking things in funs of bug hunting, supporting dev to refactor design, or, setting up automation quality bars might not be helpful. It is up to the situation. Some interviewers directly told me to move to apply developer positions when they got to know I have worked as developer for years. However, it might just be a polite excuse. Therefore, the suggestion is to turn title of "sr. dev looking for tester job" to "starting a tester job" if you are looking for local positions.
Besides, I totally agree with tips someone has already pointed out about automation test. Making artifacts as plugins, patches or wrappers is an efficient way as getting close to other software suites.
I recruit devs and testers regularly. When recruiting automation testers I try and recruit testers that have formerly been developers. It's a relatively easy transition from dev to automation tester and it's much quicker to teach a dev testing principles than it is teaching a tester development/automation skills.
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