Introduction
Quality assurance engineers play a crucial role in ensuring software products’ reliability, efficiency, and functionality. Companies depend on QA engineers to find bugs in software, improve user experience, and catalyze the process of fixing loopholes in programs. As technology and innovation grow, QA engineers employ automation tools to improve their work quality. With automated testing, QA engineers can run real-time testing on different program sizes, identify loopholes quickly, and manage the entire process without the hassle that comes with zero automation testing.
The crucial jobs of QA testers mean that many software developers will need an automation tester roadmap for career advancement. This article will explore the automation testing roadmap, including the basics and advanced curves for becoming a professional automation tester.
Automation Tester Roadmap in 2024
Let’s explore the QA automation engineer roadmap for 2024:
Master the Basics
Building a strong foundation in a basic programming language is important before delving into QA automation. You also need foundational experience with testing when drafting the roadmap to become a test automation engineer.
Programming Languages: Begin by learning popular programming languages like Python, Java, or JavaScript, which are widely used in automation testing.
Testing Fundamentals: You must understand the principles of software testing. These include test case design, defect tracking, and test planning.
Automation Tools: You must also familiarize yourself with some of the popular automation testing tools like Selenium, WebDriver, and Cypress, amongst others.
Practical Example: For programming languages, you can start by taking several courses on Code Academy, Coursera, and Udemy. You can also access free tutorials on YouTube. Join active communities for each programming language you are learning.
Pro tip: Start with the Python programming language. Other than QA, Python is a fundamental language for many cases. With good knowledge of Python, you can kick start a career in website development and UI/UX and gain immense experience by applying your knowledge to real-life solutions. Learn how to use Selenium or WebDriver to write basic testing scripts for QA testing. You can learn this through courses on Coursera or free courses on YouTube.
Automation Frameworks
Now that you know the basics of the test automation roadmap, let’s go a bit deeper. Frameworks give your automation system the structure needed to test your automation projects. The end game of frameworks is that you can easily scale your tests and replicate them on multiple systems. To create an automation framework, follow these steps:
- Choose a framework: Common frameworks include TestNG, Robot Framework, and Junit. Your choice of framework depends on the programming language you are most proficient with and the test requirements. Learning more than one framework is usually important, as a client’s system may work best with one over the other.
- Understand Framework Components: Learn about the key components of automation frameworks, such as test runners, assertions, and reporting mechanisms.
- Implementing POM: The Page Object Model enhances the maintainability of your test by separating page elements from test logic.
Test Work
- Create your first sample automation project with the TestNG framework in Java.
- Implement efficient POM design patterns to organize your test scripts and page objects.
3. Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD)
CI/CD, encompassing Continuous Integration and either Continuous Deployment or Continuous Delivery, automates the software development process, facilitating rapid and reliable delivery of code changes from development to production environments. In simple terms, CI/CD is like a robot that checks your codes to see if they are correct and places them in the right place so everyone can access them.
Now, it’s important to learn how to integrate automation testing into the CI/CD pipeline, ensuring a rapid, efficient, and seamless software delivery.
The integration of automated testing and CI/CD is novel and innovative. It will place a QA specialist in the top echelon of software developers. Achieving this feat means having a beyond-average understanding of how CI/CD works.
4. Continuous Learning
The roadmap to automation testing is a long and arduous one. Below are further steps that will move you from the intermediate level to the expert:
API Testing: Learn to use tools like Postman for API testing.
Mobile Automation: Become a QA automation tester for mobile applications. Learn frameworks like XXCTest and Appium for iOS.
The Different Types of Engineers and What They Do
As a QA specialist, understanding the roles of various engineers on your team is essential for effective collaboration. Engineers come in many specializations, including software engineers, who focus on developing applications and writing code, and systems engineers, who design and manage complex systems. There’s also a growing demand for automation engineers, who create scripts and tools to automate testing processes. Learning about the different types of engineering and what they do can help you work more closely with your engineering colleagues and contribute more effectively to the development lifecycle.
Conclusion
The journey from beginner to expert level in the automation tester roadmap is long and requires immense dedication, time, and hands-on practice. With the roadmap outlined, you have a thorough breakdown of what you must learn to become a professional. While the roadmap might seem overwhelming, it’s important to start right away. Remember, automation testing goes beyond writing code; it’s about ensuring that software programs are reliable and scalable.
