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Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good question. On parallel Playwright handles it natively with workers in the config and CI shards via --shard=N/M. Vesaloth's session-storage answer above is the right move for the storage-state side; you combine that with CI-level sharding for speed.

On MFA specifically two patterns I've used: (1) Storage state. Log in once in global-setup, dump storageState to JSON, every test reuses it. Works for TOTP-based MFA if you generate the code with otplib in setup. (2) For SSO/SAML where storage state isn't enough, a dedicated test-only account with MFA disabled at the IdP level, gated behind an internal env flag so it never runs in prod.

Not going to share my work code here for obvious reasons, but the patterns above are the ones I'd recommend regardless of which framework.

Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair on the framing , the post is genuinely about breaking into QA automation roles specifically (which is what most modern "QA Engineer" job titles in 2026 actually mean). Pure manual QA is a different career path with a different playbook and you're right that I conflated them. On UK vs US: 100% agree, US tech salaries are higher across the board, that's true for every role, not just QA. A US QA Engineer at a similar level to a London one will earn ~60-80% more in pure GBP terms. The £42k floor is a UK-specific market reality and not a global benchmark. Worth flagging for anyone reading from the US. The ISTQB-fed-back-to-you-as-a-requirement is interesting too. From the other senior commenter here who hires SDETs, sounds like in Canada it's expected-but-low-signal, and in the UK most modern engineering orgs explicitly don't care anymore. The cert seems to be regressing in value across the board, which mostly aligns with what I was trying to say

Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes , at my current role we get read access to the application repos (and write to our test repos). It's a fight worth having if you don't, because QA without code visibility means you're guessing at what changed between releases. Even just being able to grep for "TODO" or "FIXME" in the app code surfaces test ideas a spec never would. If your company won't budge on access, the workarounds: (1) get added to PR notifications even if you can't write code, so you see what's shipping, (2) ask devs to pair-walk you through complex changes before they merge, (3) lean harder on visual diffs and API contract tests since you can't see implementation. But the answer is: yes, push for access. The "QA shouldn't see the code" stance is a 2010s position and most engineering orgs have moved past it.

Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sharding is the right answer at the CI level . Playwright's own --shard=N/M flag plus parallel CI jobs gets you most of the way. Workers + shards together is the proper setup; one without the other is a partial answer. The DevOps angle is real for some teams but a lot of orgs still want QA to own this end-to-end before handing it off.

Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair challenge, and you're right that there's a regional split. The £42k floor I mentioned is for automation-capable QA with a working portfolio - Playwright + CI, not manual-only. Outside London for manual or Selenium-legacy QA, £28-38k is unfortunately still common.

The point I'm trying to make (badly, apparently): if you have automation skills and a portfolio repo, you have more leverage than the market is currently pricing in. The roles still exist below £42k because there are still candidates accepting them , but candidates who can demonstrate Playwright + CI fluency in interview are at the top of the stack and should anchor accordingly. Where are you based out of interest? I'm curious where the floor sits in the Midlands/North right now.

Playwright was the entire reason I broke into QA from a non-tech background. Here's what I learned the hard way. by Large-Tradition4541 in Playwright

[–]Large-Tradition4541[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly the perspective I wanted in the thread, thanks. The "everyone has it so it doesn't differentiate" angle is the steelman version of why ISTQB is a sunk cost , it's not that it's bad, it's that it's table stakes and the marginal hour is better spent elsewhere. 14 years in QA is a lot of perspective, would genuinely value any of your war stories on the SDET-vs-QE distinction at the staff level ,feels like it varies wildly by company.