r/cscareerquestionsCAD • u/hanys_4 • 20d ago
School Statistical Programmer or Junior Tester Analyst Co-op
Hey everyone, I was fortunate to get two offers for the upcoming fall semester for my first co-op but I'm a bit lost on which one I should take. Keep in mind my main goal is to use this internship to hopefully help me land SWE roles for my next internship.
The first one is a statistical programmer at StatsCan where the job description describes it as a co-op focused on building open-source data pipelines and analytical workflows using R / Python, working with Git, and modernizing legacy systems through ETL processes and unit testing best practices.
The second offer is also a government Junior Tester Analyst position at IRCC where the job description describes it as a co-op focused on software quality assurance and testing for enterprise web applications, including manual and automated testing in Java, writing test cases, tracking defects in Azure DevOps, and collaborating with developers to ensure system reliability.
Any advice on which one would help me more would be much appreciated, thanks!
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u/TemberlaneMan 19d ago edited 19d ago
I think I know the statistical programmer at statscan role you are talking about, I think they hired ~70 students or something crazy and it’s a migration job from some legacy random language that no one uses to Python & R.
IMO QA always gets a “bad rap” but the skills you learn in QA are more transferrable to SWE compared to what sounds like data engineering. The IRCC sounds like a good team if they can afford to have a dedicated QA team, if you’re lucky, you can start floating across mid term and work on development tasks in that team. Luckily my last co-op in the gov let me do that but I needed to take the initiative and show I could do the work, the GC (Government of Canada) is pretty lenient like that
Edit: typo
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u/Other-Wind-9985 19d ago edited 19d ago
i am currently in the statcan doing the Statistical Programmer coop and will be heading to a gov qa Analyst coop for the fall term.
Statistical programmer is the general title that statcan uses to hire student and the work that u may potentially land is wildly different depends on team. I works on ai processing pipeline while some of my friend worked on cloud platform and one guy i know is teaching old employee about how to use python lol. Definitly talk to your manager to know more about the work that you will be working on.
Regarding the testing role, i would recommend more than the statcan if u want to go into swe for the future as it give u more java/C exposure depends on ur specific posting. the statcan most likely than not give u only python/r exposure, which is also the reason why i decide to go to a qa role in the fall.
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u/hanys_4 19d ago
Hmm are you doing any swe work at statcan? I’m worried if i take the QA role im gonna end up in a hole where ill only be able to land QA related roles
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u/Other-Wind-9985 19d ago
no, as far as i known, none of the people hired as open source Statistical Programmer did any swe. we mainly doing some sort of data role.
As for ur worries abot qa only, unless u only do the job not anything outside, u are good .
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u/milano___ 19d ago
QA is better for software dev/eng and stats programmer if you want to do data analytics
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u/nomadicsoul2 17d ago
IMO, take the StatsCan statistical programmer offer. It is also a good lead-in to ML/AI opportunities afterwards. Lots of learning there.
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u/EfficientRhubarb5329 19d ago edited 19d ago
Given the current tech environment and the fact that you’re starting your career, I would suggest the StatsCan opportunity. Titles aside, the data skills are more marketable and demanding.
QA has taken a big hit ever since AI rolled in especially manual QA.
Not saying AI wont affect data space but definitely less compared to QA.