JuniorLearnsToCode

This year has been pretty active for me and there were a few achievements that I'm very happy about. The biggest thing I achieved was the fact that I was able to get my stage fright under more control. I practiced the speeches I delivered at conferences beforehand, and made sure I also recorded myself while rehearsing which to me was the most helpful of all things I've tried. Delivering your practiced speech in front of a mirror can also be a good idea, but a recording allows you to listen and analyze your speech and see what can be improved. This year I spoke at two in-person conferences (long overdue, thanks to Covid) and one online conference, and one in-person meetup. Here's a detailed round-up of what I was up to, first of all, conferences: TestBash Careers - How to market yourself better as a software tester Bosnia Agile Day - Modern Testing Principles - Natural Evolution of Agile Testing Testival - Keynote Why Community Matters, Philosophy and Drive QA Global Summit...

Once you have been to a certain number of interviews, you will notice that there are a lot of common questions that you will be asked by different interviewers. Sometimes differently worded, but most of the time the similar knowledge check will be required of you. This is especially the case if you are applying for a tester role for the first time, it may be for your first job ever, or a career change in IT, or if you're coming from another background. The goal of this post is to help people ace their interviews, and also to stimulate them to learn more about testing. Simply memorizing answers by heart will do you no good in the long run - you might find yourself in a situation where you bit off more than you can chew, let's say you find online a bunch of common QA interview questions, just memorize them without any understanding of the topics, bluff your way through the interview and you start working - the employer things you know what you claimed and expects a certain level ...

The Three Amigos is a software developer approach that is often used in Agile environments. It a highly collaborative development strategy. It places a large emphasis on communication. Perhaps it's biggest selling point is the fact that different experts are working in union, complimenting each others unique skills, thus being able to gain a broader perspective on things. This approach helps out to get clear understanding of the requirements and agree on the "Definition of Done" - what exactly is need to put the story in the "Done" status. Roles Involved in the Three Amigos We need the following roles in order to utilize this development strategy: BA  - the Business Analyst would help ensure that team understands what is expected from the user stories, so the team realizes what business value would the customer receive. In places where there is no BA, the PO (Product Owner) will take place of this amigo. Dev  - the developer can help in understanding the require...

Podcast -  the "radio" of modern times is very popular these days, especially among the IT folk. The thing I like about podcasts is that they offer information, entertainment, and food for thought. Listening to a podcast while taking a leisurely stroll, a ride on the bicycle, or sitting on the bus while going to work, is a fun way to spend your time, and it's productive as well.  Below I shall list a few podcasts that I've found particularly useful. Since I have listened to a whole bunch of podcasts in the past few years, I will try to limit myself to only the top favourite ones.  As there's no time as the present, let's get started! Syntax This is, truth be told one of my favourite podcasts. It's got two hosts: Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski , both of them are veteran web developers and online course creators. The podcast is mostly, but not exclusively, focused on front-end web developments, with a notable accent on JavaScript, but they do talk ab...

Lately, I've been seeing an increased interest in testing, so I figured I ought to share a few tips that help me get my foot into the door and get that first junior tester/QA role. I'll try to keep it short and concise, as much as I can.  Because that's why. I first got into IT by getting a few certifications from Microsoft (I'll expand on this later), fixing PC and doing technical support shortly after that. My high school degree and college I was going to, at the time, were completely unrelated to IT - I finished art high school and I was studying history in college. I got my first QA role in a company where I had already spent roughly two and a half years working as a technical support agent, answering chats and emails, phone calls, helping out the customers over remote desktops, like TeamViewer - the usual support gig. The QA role I did at the time was strictly manual, not very demanding but I did have a nice time doing it, I had a great team, learned a f...

I listen to a lot of podcasts (coding and testing related mostly) in my spare time and while listening to Ministry of Testing podcast I heard about these 30 day testing challenges they have.  I decided to got with the 30 days of API testing challenge first as the topic of API's interests me greatly - in terms of both professional and personal curiosity.  Day 1 Found a definition of API testing: “API testing involves testing the application programming interfaces (APIs) directly and as part of integration testing to determine if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security.” Day 2 For API exploratory testing I'd use Postman, the course I started on it seems like a good idea now. Day 3 I started reading a book on API testing, by Alan Richardson, the dude behind the Evil Tester podcast, the name ain't "good" but the content is! 😀 Day 4 I really like the MDN's explanation of HTTP protocol, ...

Very recently I took the ISTQB (CTFL 2018) certification exam - and failed it by missing only one question, 26 correct answers is the passing grade, and I had 25.. If you also do not wish to pass the exam, keep reading I'll share a few tips bellow that are guaranteed to work! So, let's start! Procrastinate and delay scheduling the exam for as long as possible - by registering for exam you will set a deadline for yourself and it will be a constant reminder for you to keep learning consistently on a regular basis. Why would you want that? Study all by yourself - if you surround yourself with other people who are learning the same thing it will be much easier, and we don't want that now do we...? Forget about reading books and the syllabus - the textbook “ Foundation of Software Testing: ISTQB Certification ” by Rex Black, Dorothy Graham is a very useful resource and so is the official syllabus, why waste time with helpful resources? Ignore the glossary whe...