JuniorLearnsToCode

Some software Testers may get tired of a long career in testing or do not want to pursue a career technical career, such as becoming an automation specialist, or a developer. Such software testers can go on to become product owners, business analysts, scrum masters, project (program or product) managers, or engineering managers. There are many other non-technical roles to choose from, but here I will focus on the most common ones. Let us explore these non-technical career options and dive into the details of each of them. Final remark before we go on: even though these roles seem non-technical, each of these roles benefits if the tester has a technical background, and most contemporary testers do.  Product Owners As a tester often you would think about in what way would a customer use a product, and how a particular functionality could be made easier for the customer to use. As a product owner, you would be able to influence those kinds of decisions - after all the product owner is...

Most of the time, when people hear the term "software testing" the first thing that comes to mind is just that - testing some software, which usually involves reporting a lot of bugs, designing test cases, doing exploratory testing sessions, working on automated checks, etc. But, there are a lot of other ways in which a tester can contribute to the overall quality of the product. So what exactly would proactive thinking be, from a tester's perspective? A tester does not have to be just a bearer of bad news, as a tester sees the system as a whole and gets plenty of chance to interact with it, the said tester can also gain a lot of useful insight into the system. One of the most important aspects of our job is to provide information, sometimes that information needs to be distilled down into more succinct formats, but also, a tester should proactively act on the information he/she gains.  Just because you might not find any obvious bugs in a feature you're testing it do...

Test oracles and heuristics can be considered as "meta" aspects in software testing, often we can be in a position where we are using them without being aware of the "official" definitions. In short, an oracle is a way of deciding whether our test has passed or failed - most commonly express by using terms such AR/ER, Actual Result, and Expected Result.  Heuristics can be viewed as a rule of a thumb, a guiding principle, the "official" description goes like this:  " A heuristic, or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem-solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation. " Heuristics can be applied to various testing activities, but are especially useful in exploratory testing, as they are broad and generic enough to be applicable in a variety of different situations.  And lastly, M...

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...

This is another blog post inspired by  Bloggers Club June 2021 - if you are a tester (or interested in testing) be sure to check out the Ministry of Testing, it's wonderful community of smart and helpful people and their forum (called the Club) is great place to get help, get inspired and to discus stuff to stimulate those little grey cells. This month's topic idea appealed to me straight away. I try not to have regrets, per say, but there I decisions from the past that, from today's perspective, I would have made differently. If I could, pretty much only thing I would have done differently is that I would have left support sooner (I worked in tech support for about two and a half years) and gotten into testing sooner. I spent a lot of time trying to find myself, I was learning WordPress and doing freelance consulting, learning Angular, React, PHP, Java, .NET/C# and other development technologies, mostly (but not exclusively) front-end oriented. I recently  blogged about ...

This blog post is inspired by Ministry of Testing Bloggers Club  topic idea for April 2021, the goal of the post is to describe only three skills which are important for testers and explain why! For me personally, by reading blogs from different authors, I noticed that there is always something new and unique to everyone's perspective - even when people are covering the same topic! Aside from broadening your horizons it is also a good way of learning (you do get a certain level of repetition) and benefit from viewing things from another angle, which is always a good source of thinking material! So without further ado, I will list my top three skills bellow. 1. Communication I often list this one as skill number one whenever someone asks me what to I think about the most important skill for a tester. But why? Communicating effectively is important for almost any role in IT, but, for a tester it is a must, as a tester may be often viewed as the harbinger of bad news so it is vital fo...

What is DevOps and Why do we Deed it? The current technological and economical state of the world makes DevOps pretty much inevitable and quite a necessity. The traditional software development approaches do not allow the business to have as much flexibility (as the DevOps philosophy does) and more importantly, companies that implement DevOps practices can be a step ahead of their competition and also have the ability to make counter-moves against their competitors more rapidly, when required. For example, let's say your competitor releases a very compelling feature on their web app, and they get a lot of traction and positive feedback from their customers - resulting in more sales, in order to retain your existing user base and to attract new customers, you would need to respond quickly to this, develop a similar feature of your own, in the shortest time-frame possible, while at the same time, making sure that the new feature goes in and out of your pipeline as quickly as is can b...