So currently I am deep-diving into Gen AI and looking for ways to incorporate it into the testing process, however, one thing that has concerned me is the DSA, there is now a lot of noise surrounding DSA in testing DSA has been a favorite topic in FAANG or MAANG(whatever we say), even for testers but now even some mid-level companies have started asking for DSA in interviews, meanwhile, on the other hand, AI is in the market which has gained everyone’s attention so the question in coming future which one of this will weight more from the testing perspective for testers. And if testers have to pick something to upskill themselves in the current market scenario ,what they should choose DSA or focus on learning Gen AI?
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Sorry for asking but you are referring to “The Digital Services Act package”? If yes, could you tell me what is the connection between DSA and testing?
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No, actually my concerned was related to Data structures and algorithm. I will modify my question to avoid any further confusion.
If you have the bandwidth/time/money, I would suggest tackling both. If not, I personally suggest putting preference/effort on DSA.
DSA (as well as other programming and software development concepts) is fundamental for good and proper test automation just as it is for programming and software development. While you might not use all or most of it in daily work, the concepts learned help you to better organize and structure your code and tests. Those lacking a good understanding of programming and DSA likely end up writing hacky patched tests and automation frameworks, ones that might be designed to cover only happy/golden path tests cases, but take more work to revise for coverage of negative tests, additional test variations, or data driven tests for example.
GenAI and AI in general, I think is still new and a fad, so while good to learn, the landscape is still changing and not formalized for what exactly to expect. And I think AI is more of learning query techiques, which I think is easier to learn compared to DSA.
DSA has been around for a long time (for software developers), if it’s just getting popular with FAANG, MAANG now (with respect to QA and test automation), it may mean the test automation landscape is revealing a lack in quality of the automated test and coverage, and these companies are now tightening up their assessment of candidates the way they do for software developers. In my opinion good test automation is really work fitting for a role named “Software Development Engineering in Test (SDET)”, which is really a software engineer/developer that just happens to specialize in testing, that they have the same general experience and skillset of software engineers/developers.
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