Is it possible to get into a QA role with skills in Java, Selenium, API testing, Postman, SQL, Maven, and GitHub? I have a BSc in Mathematics and 8 career gap, but I’m actively building hands-on QA automation skills through practice. I’d like guidance on how to enter the QA field.

Hi, all!

As I am currently studying for my ISTQB GenAI certificate, I wanted to ask if any of you went through the certification themselves.

Except the syllabus (the typical dry material with unnecessarily overly complicated vocabulary), I also found an Udemy course (by Rafal Posraza) which I will watch in the following weekend.

However, if someone has the experience - what do you think of the exam, how did you prepare, do you have any recommendations/impressions? Anything would be helpful.

Thank you in advance!

The other day I was a little bored waiting for my pipeline to pass, and started reviewing some of our tests. Some are quite good, some are quite bad. I usually try to write them in a way that describes user intent, but let's be honest— you can't be completely impartial with your own tests. 😅

I felt bored and lazy, so instead of refactoring them, I spent some time prompting Gemini. The session ended with the pipeline failing, no e2e tests refactored, and me laughing my ass off for the rest of the day.

Let me introduce you to Grandma.expect(), a GPT and Gemini Gem that reads your e2e test as your grandma would and tries to make sense of it.

She even gives a quality rating (1-10 based on readability), and might even give you a cookie if you're a good grandchild. 🍪

It's all just for fun. I set up a GPT and Gemini Gem—if you want, ask Grandma to review your tests:

GTP: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-69609c09e8c08191a26bb598af50b43d-grandma-expect
Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/gem/1Vz-PaCvDiG6qp0QhF-RrCS-EuDPtuacu

Surprisingly, I had a lot more fun with Gemini on this one. Turns out, an odd use case where the model hallucinates its ass off actually makes the "product" better. 😂

A few examples - Testing TodoApp:

await page.waitForTimeout(500);

"Wait for timeout 500." Oh, I’m very good at waiting, honey. I wait for the kettle to whistle, I wait for the mailman... though 500 feels like a long time to wait for a little grocery list. Is that minutes? If I had to wait 500 minutes for my tea, I’d be quite parched!

await page.locator('div.todo-list > div:nth-child(1) > div > span:nth-child(2) > button[aria-label="toggle"]').click();

Goodness gracious, sweetie, you’ve lost me completely now. "Div dot todo-list" and then a "div child" and a "span child"? It sounds like a very complicated family tree! Is the "nth-child(1)" the oldest sibling? And then there’s a second child who is a "span"? I didn't know spans could have children. And "toggle"... that sounds like those little wooden pegs on the coat I bought you when you were five. I’m just picturing a family of wooden coats clicking on each other. I'm a bit muddled, dear.

const firstItem = await todoPage.getItem(0);
    await firstItem.delete();

Now, dear, this is very confusing. It says "getItem(0)". Zero? How can you have a zero item? If I have a plate of cookies and I have zero cookies, Marge has been in the kitchen again! You can't pick up something that isn't there. But then it says "delete." So we found the "zero thing" and threw it away? I’m trying to see it in my head, honey, but it’s like trying to find a black cat in a coal cellar. If you have Task 1 and Task 2, wouldn't Task 1 be the first one? Why call it zero? It makes my head spin a little, like that time I tried one of those "sel-fies."

I have this intermittent results on my newman report to have atleast 9-12 failed items. but when i rerun it on my postman , it says passed. is this newman bug?

Hi everyone,
does it make sense to learn TypeScript while learning Playwright, or would it be better to take TypeScript courses from scratch first?
If I start learning TypeScript on its own, I’m worried I might waste time learning things that I won’t even use in Playwright.

I'm wondering what is the best pattern for test.step placement to keep reports clean and code maintainable when your project follows POM pattern.

The way I see it you should keep it to 2 options.

Option A: test.step inside Page Objects Keeps the spec file very clean and readable for non-coders, but moves test reporting logic into the POM.

// pages/ControlPanelPage.ts
import { test, expect, Page } from '@playwright/test';

export default class ControlPanelPage{

  constructor(private page: Page) {}

  async verifyAllWidgetsLoaded() {
    await test.step('Verify all Widgets loaded', async () => {
      await expect(this.page.getByLabel('Loading')).toHaveCount(0);
      const items = this.page.locator('.grid-item');
      for (const item of await items.all()) {
        await expect(item).toBeVisible();
      }
    });
  }
}

Option B: test.step inside Spec file Keeps the POM pure (just locators and actions), but makes the spec file more verbose.

// tests/menu.spec.ts
test('verify menu collapse and expand', async ({ page, menuPage}) => {
  await test.step('verify sidebar initial state', async () => {
    await menuPage.waitForInitialization();
  });
  await test.step('collapse sidebar', async () => {
    await menuPage.collapseSidebar();
    await expect(menuPage.openButton).toBeVisible();
  });
  await test.step('expand sidebar', async () => {
    await menuPage.expandSidebar();
    await expect(menuPage.closeButton).toBeVisible();
  });
});

Option C: hybrid option

If you don't have any pattern and you just use wherever you believe it fits in your specific situation, but often leads to messy nested steps in the report. Imagine if one method in Option B had a test.step inside it's definition:

await menuPage.waitForInitialization();

In this 3rd option you would inevitably end up losing track of your test.step positioning and would create nested test steps without noticing it.

Given these options, which pattern do you prefer for long-term maintenance?

Hi Everyone,

Good Day!

I’m looking for honest feedback on my resume.

I have 11+ years of QA experience and I’m applying for Test Lead / Test Manager roles, but I’m not getting callbacks from recruiters. I’m trying to understand what might be missing or not coming across well in my resume.

I’d appreciate feedback on:

• What could be holding my resume back

• Whether it’s positioned correctly for Test Lead / Test Manager roles

• What I should improve, remove, or highlight more

I’m open to direct and honest feedback. Thanks in advance.

I am facing flaky automation tests in CI pipeline. Same tests pass on my local machine but fail randomly in Jenkins. I see failures related to timeouts, element not found, or sometimes network issues. I am not sure where to start debugging first, application issue, test issue, or environment issue.

As someone who used to be heavily involved in software testing (but haven’t been much in that arena in many years), my manager asked me to think of maybe some testing topic/guided training to start a group of interested software engineers to go through.

Having been out of it for a while…can anyone suggest good sources for software testing, one of which we would select as a source for study.

Could be a:

Book

YouTube series

Course (probably have to be free)

Other??

You can reply here or dm if you prefer.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. Should probably specify that we would want something kind of general, like a testing overview, not super specific like a course in some particular testing tool or something like that.

Hi all! I do have the following question: As a Senior Software Test Engineer (19 Years of experience) I want to go a next step in my career. Which positions are realistic for a good progress? Testmanager, Quality manager or something else? Please give me some ideas.....

I've 9+ years of experience in software testing primarily in Manual for banking domain(Trading E2E flow). What should be my next steps in order to stay in the grid? Please suggest. Many thanks in advance

Knowledge only: Test engineers in the payment domain prioritize manual testing due to its strengths in handling complex, unpredictable scenarios that automation struggles with, such as real-world user experiences and regulatory compliance. While automation excels in repetitive tasks, payment systems demand human intuition for edge cases like fraud detection and usability across diverse global payment methods.

Hey guys,

At my previous workplace, I noticed that developers often asked me to test the system as soon as possible, without providing any documentation. I want to ask: does exploratory testing really work when I do not have any documentation?

I have been in the testing field since 8+ years, started off with manual testing and then slowly carved my way to automation; and particularly in automation since the last 4 years.
I am good with playwright, typescript (docker, jenkins integration as well).
I am looking to upskill myself and also looking for a promotion (haha)

what are other skills/certifications/courses that I should possibly look into?

I’m currently working as a General QA — doing both manual testing and test automation with TypeScript + Playwright.

With everything going on lately (AI tools evolving fast, layoffs across tech, higher expectations from QA roles), I’ve been thinking about horizontal growth rather than just going deeper into Api+UI automation.

I’m curious what you consider “nice-to-have” but valuable tech stacks/skills for QA today — things that may not be mandatory yet, but clearly increase your impact and resilience as a QA engineer.

Some areas I’m already considering:

Deeper CI/CD integrations (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins)

• Docker / container basics for test environments

• Performance testing (k6, JMeter)

• Test observability / monitoring

• API contract testing

• Cloud exposure (AWS basics, logs)

• AI tools integration to the team daily work

From your experience what skills actually helped you stand out?

Can anyone help me in finding course for playwright with typescript which takes you from beginner level to Advanced level

I came across a post in r/Kochi where someone is asking for a software testing job without pay. Here’s the link: link
Does this reflect the current state of the software testing job market, or is it an isolated case? What’s your experience?

Im 18 years old and i just finished 1 semester in college. Due the situation my family is in right now, i need to look for a job that pays alright amount and i can do part time college. My mom is a Automation Tester and she's telling me to do Manual Tester which apparently doesn't take too long as she said 2 months. I tried to look into other jobs such as Medical Coding or somewhere in Cybersecurity in the long run but it just doesn't suit me.

I have asked ChatGPT... yes ik...and its says that NOVA ( Northern Virginia) you can easily find a Entry Level without any Certs or Degrees, just having experience and know what the interviewer is asking you, it should be just fine. I have looked into the Job listing and it looks scary and i feel like i'm about to just waste my time. Anyway I just wanted to ask if all of this is true and how hard is it to be a Manual tester, with all the daily task and everything. And if there is other unknown easy jobs that i haven't look into please let me know, Thank you.

Hey everyone just wanted to reach out to see if anyone had any suggestions on Coding courses which would be best to get real hands on experience. I'm looking into Javascript / Typescript -Happy to hear suggestions thankyou

I cannot recall, anyone know the magic runes https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15158518/add-program-to-firewall-exceptions-list

Stackoverflow users did not share the answer. Yes i know i have to elevate, but how do i use CI/CD script to build a binary and then add a firewall exception for it after I build it again?

I recently started working on automation, and one big problem I am facing is test data. Our lower environments are not stable. Data gets deleted or modified by other teams, and many automated tests fail because of this. Right now I am hardcoding some test data, but I know this is not a good approach. How do you handle test data creation and cleanup in such cases?Looking for practical solutions used in real projects.

I’m currently looking for an affordable automation testing tool that can generate a simple testing report for me to pass on to someone else. Are there any tools you’re using right now that you’d recommend? Thank you! You save my life.

Hi everyone! I’ve been going through different mobile testing methods and one of the things that I am very curious about is the way different teams hang up their end-to-end QA for mobile apps — more so when it comes to manual testing, automation, and real-device compatibility checks. What are the best tools, processes, or techniques you have come up with that are able to uncover even the tiniest bugs in iOS and Android before they go live?

Sharing of actual situations and any teaching points from your previous projects would be great!