The #PSQC18 conference on April 07, 2018 was around the theme of ‘adapting to change’. There were around 11 talks on different topics from testing, automation, agile, security and data analytics and a segment ‘My two cents in two minutes’ where participants were invited to share the challenges faced in the testing career in two minutes.

Background to the talk

For past 11 years I have been trying to understand why testers are treated as second class citizens in the software industry, one of the changes we need to make is ‘Technological Excellence’, for more read here. In that spirit, this talk was around how to become a ‘Technical tester’, where a hypothetical fresh graduate shares his testing career adventures and lessons he learns along the way solving each challenge.

Testers must be technical

I argue testers must be technical through a story our hypothetical tester shares with us. A story of his first testing job where features were left untested due to lack of technical depth, causing huge repercussions for the company.

Understanding the Technology stack

Our tester’s next job is about testing a hybrid application, this time he shares his journey of learning about technology stacks and how learning that helps him in testing.

Aptitude for designing algorithms

The next challenge is to learn automation due to the amount of testing he has to do. He learns it’s not about tools or languages which makes a good automation engineer, but something even more fundamental.

Develop the right attitude

Over time once the peaceful workdays have now turned into stressful debug marathons. On the run again to learn how to deal with it, his master guru tester explains the dilemma of a programmer life and how to deal with trouble shooting.

The talk seemed to be well received, so I made a separate video for the YouTube channel where you can enjoy the insightful journey of our young tester :

TALK MAIN PARTS:

  • Introduction: 0:15 – 1:00
  • Perceived vs actual career path of a tester: 1:00 – 3:19
  • Learning the importance of being technical: 3:20 – 7:50
  • Maximum test coverage through learning the Technology stack: 7:50 – 22:05
  • The Keystone of learning automation: 22:05 – 31:55
  • The bane of programming and the holy grail: 31:55 – 38:10
  • Sharing his adventures with the Guru tester (Recap): 38:10 – 40:20

 

The presentation slides can be downloaded here.