I had a chat with a chap who used to work for me.
He was looking for a new contract, but the latest filters installed contained the key word āAutomationā and his CV wasnāt getting through.
āWhat should I be doing?ā, he says.
āHmmā¦ā, says I.
pauseā¦ I could have said many things, lie, learn, read, try it out, butā¦ time onā¦
āWhy not have a chat with the relevant people? Why not make a statement in your CV/initial contact about where you place automation in your skills toolbox? Why not write the skills profile in one page that describes you with a one-liner or two from different organisations you have worked with about the value add?ā
Were all the things I thought about saying, but didnāt.
āListenā, I said, āCheck out the MOT Dojo, Udemy, MountainGoat, Satisfice, Test Obsessed and take some advice from these sources. Learn some Javascript (seems to be hottest thing here in Dublin these days), look into SoapUI, LoadUI as low level simple testing tools. Fill your toolbox with direction, even if you havenāt much experience.ā
āThenā, I said, āCheck out the likes of TeamCity, Octopus, Jenkins etc. to see whatās happening in the build, deploy, test, rinse and repeat areaā
āAfter thatā, I continued, āLook into Selenium, Fiddler, Python, Perl etc. and how they are applied in this area of Test Automationā.
āOhā, he saidā¦ Pauseā¦
āJaysus Ivor, Iām just looking to get a contract testing, Iām no developerā, he said.
āI know! But if youāre looking to do that you need to look for the right role and not beating yourself up about Automationā, says I.
The truth is, testing is evolving. Traditional test roles, where test cases are written against large requirements sets and encased in reviews, approvals and sign offs, are disappearing. Testing adds value up and down the chain of an application/products development, whether in an Agile. Kanban, Waterfall or any other methodology we can throw out there.
Except, now Business/System/Product Analysts are building testing into what they do. Now, good developers are building good quality tests into what they do. ETL developers are working hard at verifying the data pipelines they are laying down. Weāve brought the user closer to us for testing purposes in UAT. Weāve cut our product/products up into self managed deliverable chunks and it seems to work.
As testers we now have a role to play by asking the hard questions (usually at the wrong time
, by designing tests to be executed on a regular basis that are more about our insight than making sure the software works, by automating the tests that will be executed again and again, but most of all for thinking outside of the normal box, connecting thoughts, design and more with people and making things work.
As I see it, after going round the houses, the testing roles are evolving and have become more technical. The traditional testing roles have been dissipated and incorporated into other functions. The sapient tester is identified as a āTest Analystā, while the more technical tester is a āSoftware Developer in Testā. Specialist roles of āPerformance Testersā are more like DevOps and provide detailed insight into what happens to the product under duress. āRelease Engineersā make sure the automated tests are run, the process executed faithfully to deliver a working product. The āTest Managerā is more of a supporting role, as cross functional teams form and disband to meet the needs of the organisation. This particular role is most at risk as testing becomes more embedded with the political clout once associated with it being taken up by āProduct Owners/Managersā.
I do realise that I posit a view that is relatively narrow in its scope. I donāt include Governmental organisations or Banking/Financial institutions. These have typically been well behind the curve in adopting new and ultimately better ways of doing business internally.
Maybe this post should have been in the āRantsā section 
Anyways, tis my ā¬0.02c.
Thanks, Ivor