It discusses the professional development of automation practitioners from two aspects: the career direction and career planning of automation test practitioners. Analyze the various advantages and disadvantages of different career directions and the required skills from multiple perspectives, and discuss in detail the factors that should be considered in career planning. It has important reference significance for the professional development and job selection of automation practitioners.
1.1 Background
With the promotion and development of agile development in the software industry, the status of automated testing in the software testing industry is gradually rising. However, what will the automation practitioners do? What are the development directions of automation practitioners? As automated test engineers, how should we customize our career development plan for ourselves? These problems have always plagued us, and many automation practitioners are advancing in confusion. It can be seen that doing a good job of career planning is the vane for automated testing practitioners to choose the development path, clarify their own growth space, and choose the direction of employment.
According to the statistical results of testers' attitudes toward the future of the testing field released by 51testing (Figure 1), more than 60% of practitioners are confused about the development prospects of the software testing industry, and more than 10% are unclear or even feel hopeless. It can be seen that the professional development of automated testing has practical significance for automation practitioners to choose and practice.
Figure 1 Testers' attitudes towards the future of work in the testing field
1.2 The status quo of automated testing
In recent years, with the vigorous development of my country's software industry and the emphasis on software quality, the software testing industry has emerged. Software testing has become a relatively mature industry in China, gradually getting closer to the international level. Specifically in:
1) The threshold for software testing is low, and the salary is relatively high compared to other industries. It can be described as an industry with low pay and high return;
2) The impact of software quality problems is increasing, and software testing is an important and effective means to ensure software quality. Therefore, software companies are now paying more and more attention to software testing;
3) The software testing industry has a good momentum of development, the testing industry is still in a stage of short supply, and the development of automated testing is still in its infancy as a whole.
1.3 Development prospects of automated testing
Looking at the direction of human development, the emergence of sensor lights, sweeping robots, smart furniture, etc. all explain that automation is the general direction of the development of human society. The software testing industry is no exception, and automated testing must be the future direction. Currently popular agile, continuous integration, etc. are based on automation. So the development prospect of automated testing is optimistic.
As shown in Figure 1, more than 80% of practitioners believe that the testing industry has a promising or bright future. At the same time, more than 75% of testing practitioners hope to improve their automated testing skills (Figure 2). It can be seen that the development prospects of automated testing in the software testing industry are also widely recognized by the majority of software testing practitioners.
Figure 2 Skills that software testers hope to improve
Introduction to automated testing
What is automated testing, what are automated testing, the significance of automated testing and what kind of projects are suitable for automation, what qualities should we have as automated testers? Understanding the automated testing framework is of great significance to the professional development of automation professionals.
2.1 Definition of automated testing
Automated testing is to use some automated testing tools to simulate manual operations to verify the results to complete the entire testing process. Automated testing belongs to testing, but it is not limited to testing. It also realizes the highly repetitive, mechanized, and error-prone steps in the software development process with automation, and then releases the manpower for this type of work to be automated. Growth or creative work.
2.2 Classification of automated testing
When it comes to automated testing, the first reaction of most people is the automated testing of UI. In fact, it also includes interface testing, unit testing, security testing, performance testing, database testing, etc., the specific classification and each type of testing The system and tools are as shown in Figure 3:
Figure 3 Classification of automated tests
2.3 The significance of automated testing
Why do we need automated testing? Because the advantages of automated testing are obvious:
Improve test efficiency, save time and labor costs;
Before each new build is released, BVT testing can be automated, which greatly saves time and labor costs. The effect of regression testing is also very obvious.
Can perform tests that are difficult or impossible to complete manually;
For example, it is unrealistic to find many people to test the stress test of the website at the same time. It can be simulated by the machine in an automated way.
Strong consistency and repeatability
Since the test is executed automatically, the consistency of the content of each execution and the test result can be guaranteed, so as to achieve repeatable results.
Project quality process needs
For example, the development of test tools and the contribution of automation in DevOps.
Automation is important in DevOps because it provides accuracy and speed. Application delivery needs to be efficient, and manual security testing is difficult to meet schedule requirements. More importantly, third parties often miss test errors in external manual tests.
2.4 What kind of project is suitable for automation
We can judge that the current project is suitable for automation through the following aspects:
1) Long project maintenance period. If the maintenance cycle is too short, the automation framework may not have been developed yet and the product has already gone offline.
2) More frequent regression testing. If you choose manual testing, the first round may not be over, and the second round will begin.
3) The product is relatively stable and will not change frequently. If the product is unstable, the cost of maintaining automated use cases is too great, and the return on investment in automated testing is too low.
2.5 Competences of automated testers
In the early days, most companies had low requirements for testers' ability, leading to people's perception of the testing industry: low threshold, low level, and easily competent. And automated testing, as an advanced step, in the absence of a test foundation, even writing test scripts cannot solve the problem fundamentally. The abilities that automated testers should have can be divided into the following aspects. These aspects have different requirements in each career development stage. The next section will introduce the requirements of each stage in detail.
1) Basic ability. Basic ability is the foundation of testing ability and code ability, it is the basic requirement for automation testers, including carefulness, patience, sense of responsibility, learning ability, problem analysis and problem solving ability, communication ability, teamwork ability and summary problem ability. Foreign companies or foreign projects will also require foreign language skills.
2) Test ability. Testing ability is the foundation of automated testing. It can help automation prompt people to decide when to introduce automation, effectively design automated test cases, find bugs, and understand the purpose and value of automated testing. Testing capabilities mainly include business analysis capabilities, bug insight capabilities and basic software testing knowledge (bug life cycle, testing theory and methods, etc.)
3) Code capability. Good code ability is the prerequisite for automated testers to write high-quality automated test scripts. In the process of developing automated test scripts, it is necessary to consider the stability, robustness and scalability of the code, and at the same time combine data structure and algorithms to reduce later Maintenance costs. Code capabilities mainly include automated script design capabilities, framework development capabilities, and framework design capabilities.
Software testing is the easiest subject in IT-related industries to get started~ It does not require the logical thinking of developers, and operations and maintenance personnel are not required to be on call 24 hours a day. What is needed is a careful attitude and a broad understanding of IT-related knowledge. The growth path of each tester from entering the industry to becoming a professional expert can be divided into three stages: software testing, automated testing, and test development engineers.
If you don't want to experience the feeling that you can't find the information during self-study, no one answers your questions, and insists on giving up for a few days, you can join our software testing exchange group 313782132, which contains various software testing materials and technical exchanges.