Being a tester in the software industry, is a big responsibility, just like: A proofreader, who will have to proofread each and every word, written by the author. A fashion designer, who will have to try the designer clothes on her own, before putting them for display. A scientist, who will have to do R & D to understand the impacts of implementation. For most of my career, I have seen “made” testers due to lack of other career options, lack of technical knowledge etc., rather than “chosen” testers, who have chosen the software testing career consciously. I think it doesn’t matter how it started as long as you invest time and effort to gain experience and understand the technicalities of the field. As they say, “A passionate tester is more beneficial than an experienced developer.” Most of the software testers validate the software’s features and look into the product/application with scrutiny to find bugs in it. That is, for the most part, the right track but it should not be the only target.