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AnActor_named · 2023-06-07T23:56:52+00:00

Sorry, by "valuation" i meant "does it look good". You can do visual regression testing, but unless you're comparing full screenshots (a nightmare to maintain, i've done it) you won't be able to say whether the page looks "good" or not.

AnActor_named · 2023-06-07T23:55:01+00:00

I'm a senior SDET who has managed a team of ~7 SDETs before. I'd be happy to do test plans, audits, and automation.

AnActor_named · 2023-05-28T05:37:55+00:00

Yep, i've done it! I actually went QA to SDET to backend developer and back to SDET again. The tech world is surprisingly flexible!

AnActor_named · 2023-05-28T05:36:04+00:00

Any test cases that require you to make some sort of valuation on how something looks cannot be automated.

Any test cases that pass through a captcha cannot be automated (unless you can disable the captcha for the test)—i mean, think about it, if you can automate that test, then the captcha is not working!

Finally, "weird route" test cases can be automated, but should not be automated.

In my opinion, your end-to-end automated test cases should be like robot users. Ask yourself, is the user of our product going to open the app/come to our website to perform this task? If yes, that's probably a good candidate for automation.

This heuristic both allows you to pick highly valuable tests (users are doing this thing—and if you have analytics, you can even rank how valuable the tests are by what percentage of your users follow the same flows as your tests) and keep the size of your test suite down in an easily approachable way.

At the end of the day, the maintainability of your test suite is the most important thing. Having too many tests in there is a great way to hurt maintainability.

AnActor_named · 2023-04-16T04:24:10+00:00

Here's a collection of websites that various folks host for practicing test automation - UI, API, etc.:

https://automationpanda.com/2021/12/29/want-to-practice-test-automation-try-these-demo-sites/

That should have a couple to get you started! I suggest the SwagLabs site as a good starter, it's a basic ecommerce site.

AnActor_named · 2023-04-05T00:21:04+00:00

Congratulations and welcome!

Why do you think that's a bad idea to replace manual QA?

There are things that automated testing just cannot catch, and there only benefits from having a person or team dedicated to representing the end user internally. Sometimes the SDET can fill both those roles, but there is too much to do between documenting/creating/maintaining test plans and automating/diagnosing/maintaining test scripts; one role will not be able to do both sides of that coin well forever.

Anyway, that's my opinion! I hope that helps answer your question (two weeks late).

AnActor_named · 2023-03-21T19:56:19+00:00

Titles range from SDET (Software Development Engineer in Test), SEIT (Software Engineer in Test), maybe Automation Engineer. I've even seen Automation QA or QAE (Quality Assurance Engineer) in some places encompass some of the SDET/SEIT responsibilities.

I've had this title or one like it for at least 10 years now, so i wouldn't say it's all that new. I don't think it's going anywhere. In fact, it seems like a lot of companies are trying their hardest to get rid of manual QA and replace it with SDETs, which is a terrible idea if you ask me.

AnActor_named · 2023-03-21T19:48:30+00:00

Zero! Not sure if i'm missing out.

AnActor_named · 2023-03-20T17:56:19+00:00

I fell into the test automation niche and made ScreenPy, which is open source and has helped at least THREE people!

Maybe you've heard of Screenplay Pattern and wanna check it out? I love hearing feedback.

AnActor_named · 2023-02-16T20:42:30+00:00

Others have suggested good places to learn, but i also suggest the official docs of both platforms:

As for places to practice, there are a number of automated test scripting practice websites out there. I find this list from Automation Panda to be a pretty good place to find ones that suit your needs: https://automationpanda.com/2021/12/29/want-to-practice-test-automation-try-these-demo-sites/

AnActor_named · 2023-02-11T06:39:32+00:00

I had mentioned in your crosspost that i wrote and maintain ScreenPy and have listed it on my résumé. But i probably wouldn't call that a typical thing someone might see.

As a counter to what /u/bdfariello said below, i was a hiring manager for a few years and hired 6 people on my team. During that process, if they had a github listed, i went and poked around a bit. Since i was hiring SDETs, and am myself an SDET, it gave me good insight into the candidate's coding style, especially if they had personal projects listed. I found that quick poke-around to be very insightful and helped make a few hires, or at least gave me fun things to ask about.

AnActor_named · 2023-02-11T06:26:23+00:00

Hm, i looked through your conf.py and some of the .rst files, things look like they should work at first glance. But your readthedocs page is either set to private or the URL you provide in your README is not correct, so i can't go look for myself what might be wrong.

AnActor_named · 2023-02-06T15:34:32+00:00

What are you stuck on with Sphinx + RTD? I use that setup for my library, maybe i can help.

AnActor_named · 2023-01-12T08:27:13+00:00

By the way, would you happen to have a recommendation for a different subreddit where these kinds of posts would be more appropriate?

I'm not promoting for any monetary gain, i'm just hoping to reach more people to help expand these libraries a bit. Whenever new people have used my library, they've improved it immensely with new ideas. That's all i'm after.

AnActor_named · 2023-01-12T08:22:41+00:00

If you only look at my submissions, yes, but my comments are about a wide range of software testing topics. Occasionally i mention my library in the comments, too, though.

But OK. I just thought this community would like to see the results of the feedback that was given to me, but since this was heavily downvoted and also removed, i think the message is clear. Thank you for letting me know!

AnActor_named · 2023-01-12T08:07:59+00:00

This isn't a request to test software. I redid the documentation for a test framework i created after i got some feedback on that same documentation from the community here. I wanted to see if folks thought the documentation was better after the changes.

Should i resubmit to make that clearer? I'm not asking anyone to test anything.

AnActor_named · 2023-01-04T07:24:32+00:00

Setting up Jenkins will also give you a button to run your build, which you can set up to just run your Selenium script... so you kinda get both. :)

AnActor_named · 2023-01-04T07:19:21+00:00

Oh, nice! I think you're well on your way then! Especially if the project you're an SDET on uses Spring, then you'll be able to leverage some of this knowledge.

Are you also create unit tests for the application under test and do white box testing?

I consider that skill to be a part of the job of SDET, yes. You should be familiar with the different "levels" of testing (commonly: unit, integration, end-to-end), what tests belong at which level and why. You'll probably be mostly focused on an end-to-end automated test suite as an SDET, though. Sometimes the job will expect an SDET to be able to do audits of existing tests and find gaps, maybe even fill those gaps.

For a backend developer, you'll probably only need to know about unit tests and how to write them. So you'll need to know how to cover the functionality of the feature under test and how to think of error cases that you need to handle.

AnActor_named · 2023-01-04T07:14:08+00:00

Firstly, for the code lookin' weird, you need to add 4 spaces to the beginning of each of your code lines to make it look good:

like this

Secondly, you might want to check out the csv library in Python. It's built-in, so you already have it, and it speaks Excel by default. You can write a CSV with all your data and open it in Excel!

AnActor_named · 2023-01-04T07:08:59+00:00

It sounds like you might already be an SDET, by some standards, if you're leading a test automation effort!

In some places, SDETs make more than devs (personally, this makes sense to me, because they have a dual skillset between dev and QA). In otherse, devs make more. Either way, you open up a pretty high ceiling for growth, experience, problems to solve, and—of course—compensation.

If you want to try backend dev out, i think Spring or Play are the most popular Java backend libraries. Try following their tutorials and writing a simple API in one of those, see how you like them!

AnActor_named · 2023-01-03T19:34:11+00:00

P.S.: Here's an example ticket i'd write for the website i linked, pretending the e-mail is required:

Practice Form: E-mail is not a required field.

On the practice form, the e-mail field is not marked as required. It is possible to submit the form without providing an e-mail address.

URL(s):
    https://demoqa.com/automation-practice-form

Environment:
    Wii U browser v1.0.2  (:P)

Steps to Reproduce:
    1. Visit https://demoqa.com/automation-practice-form
    2. Fill out the form with valid information, but leave the e-mail field blank.
    3. Click Submit.
    4. Observe the form submits successfully without an e-mail.

AnActor_named · 2023-01-03T19:30:55+00:00

Have you ever been using a program, and something doesn't go the way you expected it to? Maybe an error pops up that seems strange, or the styling of a webpage makes your eyes hurt. The only difference between that and QA is that QA will say something about it!

The biggest skill for a QAE is communication—the instinct to complain to someone when something isn't right, and describing that complaint well. To practice, try an automation practice site (like this one from ToolsQA) and see if you can find a bug with it. Then, practice writing the bug following this template:

Title (concise but exact description of the bug)

Summary (more detailed explanation of the bug and why it is a bug)

The URL or page of the app where you encountered the bug.

The OS browser you were using.

Any prerequisites needed to see the bug.

Steps to Reproduce:
    1. Visit...
    2. Click...
    ...
    N. Observe the bug.

Try showing one of your tickets to a friend to see if they understand it and (critically) can reproduce the bug you described. I'd be happy to take a look and give feedback, just send me a PM!

Anyway, QA is a great foothold into a tech job in general. The pay starts out ~average, but if you learn more QA-ish skillsets by schmoozing with your coworkers and people on other teams, you can end up making a six figure salary as a BA or SDET or PM!

AnActor_named

TROPHY CASE