Discussion on answer by josh3736: I'm a web developer but I am being asked to automate testing in Selenium

I would add to this: You can't ever move up to doing architecture (which is a core skill for any senior software engineer) if you've never done testing. A design that's high performance and easy to code is worth nothing if it is not also straightforward to verify (and maintainable, etc). That testing experience is invaluable when it comes to structuring code that needs to be tested (which is all production code). Even if someone else is going to do the testing.

@PasserBy I hated testing when I thought that my job was to generate code. When I see my job as solving problems, testing is a mandatory part of the job. Clients don't want to see bugs; they want working software that solves their problems. But that does not mean that I see the software in the same way as the client does. So, I work with them the first few days to make sure that I see things their way.

@Fattie: I think the main issue with why this stands out as being important here and not something you will be pigeonholed into - it's often the way to help a developer onboard onto a project, because it allows them to become familiar with how the back-end and front-end code actually interact relevant to the user. You can be a dedicated QA tester or SDET, but if that's not your title, using Selenium here is about getting used to how the tool you will be developing is meant to function. Once some Selenium work has been done, you will be doing feature development - Selenium automates tests.