what are my chances of finding a job in SV? (Redwood City: find a job, live in)

[1900088]

Currently live in NYC, looking to relocate, trying to find a job in or around Redwood City, Mountain view or palo alto. Problem is my experience has been in manual (not automated) testing - 9 years experience. Nonexistent programming skills. I've been trying to find quality assurance, design (requirements gathering), consulting, or tester positions but am I right in thinking it seems that most QA jobs here require programming experience as well? Most of the companies I've looked at require scripting, or programming. I've tried monster and some temp firms - any recommendations? I'm going to try dice next.. thanks

[80skeys]

indeed.com
linkedin.com (yes, recruiters do look here)
craigslist (you have to wade through the spam here)

SV is all about computers, so the more you can add to your computer skills by learning how to script, the better off you are

I don't know what you mean by "manual" testing. care to elaborate?

[jbunniii]

Every QA/test department I've ever interacted with had a substantial degree of automation. I don't see how you could meaningfully test software, hardware, or anything else in the tech world in a purely manual way. It would be very inefficient, slow, error-prone, and (I would think) tedious for all involved. The test coverage would also be much less thorough.

If I were you, I would start learning a scripting language pronto. It doesn't matter all that much which one you choose - if you can learn one, it's not hard to learn others. Python seems to be the most popular these days. Here's a page full of links to tutorials about Python for non-programmers:

BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers - PythonInfo Wiki (http://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers - broken link)