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How do I Start Test Automation on Day 1 of Onboarding a Software Project?
Making a good impression, End-to-End (via UI) Test Automation can be real, useful, and proven quickly.
I switched my day work from Programming (a 10X Java contractor) to Automated Testing in 2010. Since then, I have worked on many software projects as a test automation engineer (short-term contractor).
From my experience, many software teams only have a vague idea about test automation, as only a few have witnessed a successful one like the one below.
The management commonly hires a test automation engineer because the existing manual testing was highly stressful, and they hoped for relief.
Day 1 here I mean the first day that I got the resources (computer, accounts, access permissions, …) to do the work.
Onboarding a software project, a new team member needs a starting time (e.g. online training). People usually don’t expect a newbie to get real work done in the first week or two, which is plenty of time for good test automation engineers to set up a proper continuous testing process. For me, 1 day is enough. My Day 1 work (with viewable achievement) usually made a great impression at the start.
I use all free, popular and open frameworks: raw Selenium WebDriver (the dominating web automation framework, only one conform W3C standard) and RSpec (v3.8.0 has over 200 million downloads). Developed in TestWise IDE (with free mode) and run in international award-winning BuildWise CT server (free and open-source).
∘ 1. Learn about the simple and typical test case
∘ 2. Write a few automated tests
∘ 3. Show it to the colleague
∘ 4. Set up a BuildWise CT server and run all automated tests there
∘ Can these really be done within one day?
∘ FAQ
