I’ve just wrapped up an 11-month contract testing media players and backend streaming systems for a media client, and before that, a 6-month CMS upgrade project. I’ve been in QA for about 10 years, mostly doing manual testing across front-end and back-end systems.
I’ve dabbled a bit in automation and done some small projects, but honestly, I find I enjoy the manual and exploratory side of testing more. That said, I know automation skills are in high demand, so I’m not sure what direction to take next.
Should I keep going with manual QA while learning automation gradually, or take time out to really build stronger automation experience first?
Would love to hear how others have approached this or balanced the two paths.
Hey, great question! That is a question many experienced QA professionals have been asking themselves.
You are lucky to have laid your foundation building a 10-year experience in front end and back end systems. There are still very few projects that would discount such value. A client with a complex system, say a media streaming company, will need a lot of manual and exploratory testing: automation testing can barely sniff the level of subtle user experience or integration nuances.
If you are leaning toward testing on the exploratory side, it’s perfectly fine for you to keep forging that path/skill while gaining automation skills bit by bit. You might want to learn one tool or framework (Playwright, Cypress) and start automating parts of your current workflow; this way, you are maintaining a few practical applications while gaining confidence in automation.
I have witnessed a lot of contractors hit their spot by marketing themselves as Exploratory + Light Automation Testers some who exist on both sides of the fence. Over time, you’ll learn which side is the most rewarding to you or what pulls your demand.
Let me say it: Do not report to become an automation engineer. Sharpen the manual skills. Apply automation to real problems and let the future contract reveal both strengths.
Thanks that sounds like good advice. I know a lot of companies are going towards automation testing. As a contractor I feel it would benefit me learning it and to be in demand. I do feel like I enjoy manual side of testing, exploratory, accessibility testing
If you like manual testing, you are probably really good at stringing long sequences of steps and ideas and so on into your head all at once. Probably smart to stick with it until you start to struggle with memory. However, open yourself up to using “tools” that automate things for you, and tools that help you to do stress testing and scale testing. That would be my learning path, and also of course security and penetration learning. Good luck, I admire the manual testers who can fit so much into their working memory and reason about it.