I’m looking to put together a learning plan to get to grips with automation.
Here’s the pieces I have of this ‘puzzle’ but might need a bit of support to figure out how to go about it properly.
My Interests:
To become a specialised Automation QA tester using Python-based automation techniques after three years of commercial experience as a manual tester and gaining the ISTQB foundation certification under the support of my previous employer.
Goals: Short-term
Get an understanding of Python for test automation, as recommended by someone in my network.
Become familiar with at least Selenium and Playwright for UI test automation
Become familiar with API testing using Postman Mid-term
Land a Junior/Entry-level Software Testing position and/or a test automation apprenticeship
While I’ve been pretty active with my automation learning so far, particularly with Python/Selenium, I feel like I just need to have a structured plan and a place to go to ask questions on a 1-2-1 or group basis.
If anyone can point me in a good direction, maybe even working with me to come up with a feasible plan that could help me land a junior position within the next few months, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Thanks so much in advance for the help!!!
EDIT: To put my background into perspective, I have three years of experience in manual testing, so things like exploratory testing techniques, writing test cases and documenting them and occasionally using SQL to check data, making sure records have saved properly, etc. I was made redundant from my job at the end of February and have seen that there’s more demand for automation, particularly for junior/entry-level roles, over purely manual testing positions.
I am looking to put together a comprehensive learning plan that will get me into a position where I can comfortably apply for and possibly land a junior role despite having no professional experience in automation but 3+ years of manual experience.
Why have you focused on testing?
Doing UI automation means generally that you’re not testing. You’re coding a product that checks another product given some sets of instructions by another person who might or might not be a tester.
Could you edit the initial post and add your background, what you think you know, and what were some of your previous relevant interesting projects?
Can you post a job description from a company in your area that you would want to get?
Some people move for a job, are you willing to? and how far?
Get an understanding of Python for test automation, as recommended by someone in my network.
Structured Python learning:
Become familiar with at least Selenium and Playwright for UI test automation
Start with Playwright, Selenium should be similar but with a bit more headache.
I found some of the things in this guide useful for UI and API automation:
But the main source was trying to cover as much as possible from Installation | Playwright Python while coding and trying to find potential solutions to my problems.
I’ve just added an edit to the initial post to put my situation into context and perspective. Basically putting it, while I have commercial experience as a tester, none of it had any automation, purely manual.
As for job descriptions and so on, unfortunately I’ve not come across any junior roles in my local area and I cannot relocate for reasons I’d rather not share as it’s very personal.
Hope this helps to understand my situation a little bit better.
Well, automated testing is really just using more tools to help you do more testing and faster (in a relative fashion though). Manual testers already do use tools, but just not as many kinds, so it’s really a ramp. A good place to start is TAU Test Automation University https://testautomationu.applitools.com/ is a “gamified” journey to the automated testing skills than can normally take years to learn. The starting point for any real learning is probably the primary hurdle though that even a cool system like TAU cannot just hand to you.
Hence starting with something like Python programming or even Java and using that skill to build little nonsense apps and pointless tools. Heck how many kids learned to program and wrote a calculator app? Most of us did, it feels pointless to do something that has already been done. many of us wrote versions of the space invaders game too, all vital steps. So just because an exercise in the journey feels dull and low achievement, do it anyway. I really wish I had kept all the source code for my first proper app, it used to fit on a 1.44 diskette and had it’s own 31 days rolling database and ran in under 512K ram, so yeah, do those tiny exercises and keep the code afterwards too.
