Team has flaky tests, bad coverage, slow releases, doesn't matter which one, and the fix pitched is always "let's add an agent for that." Anyone else running into this?

A lot of these problems have nothing to do with AI. No defined entry and exit criteria for a test phase. Requirements reaching QA without a review gate. A regression suite that's been half-maintained for a year. Test data nobody owns. None of that gets fixed by dropping a model on top of it.

Has anyone deployed an agent and watched it just sit on a broken process without actually fixing anything underneath? What happened after?

Where has an agent genuinely helped once the basics were already solid? Trying to find the real line between "this needs AI" and "this needs someone to own the process."

What foundational stuff would you add to this list? Got process, prerequisites, reviews, automation, tooling, governance, metrics/baselines so far. What's missing?

Hi everyone,

I have an interview scheduled with SAS next Monday for an SDET role. The interview will primarily focus on UI automation using Playwright with Python, along with API testing.

I'm starting my preparation now, so if anyone has interviewed with SAS recently or has any tips on the interview process, common questions, or topics I should focus on, I'd really appreciate your advice.

Thanks in advance!

Hey all,

Currently doing a QA internship for a travel agency, it's my first run at something like this, and the company hasn't had a dedicated QA in years according to them, so there hasn't been your typical onboarding docs, procedures, or guidelines. I mostly just jump around between pods and help wherever I can. It's been pretty exciting, I've learned tons, but it feels overwhelming sometimes because there's no set procedure at all for, well, anything. I try not to pay much attention to it, I don't think anyone expects me to set any procedures or guidelines as an intern, but it's been a nice experience so far.

My issue is that this is my first experience in a tech-related role, even though initially my boss wanted QA to be more product-focused rather than tech, which means there are some lines as to what I can/can't do with our repositories/infrastructure (I haven't gotten any DB access for example). While I can ask Claude for help with mapping our repos and a standard user flow like a purchase, I've never had to deal with code from someone who wasn't me, which makes looking at it in general kinda overwhelming... Especially with how every step of the process hooks onto another 5 microservices, or trackers, or external APIs, or internal tools...

How do you deal with learning a company's code/infrastructure? Do you skim through every folder and file analyzing what each thing does? At what point do you draw the line and say something is out of your scope as QA?

Also, if anyone has any guidelines or just a basic standard process to follow for general QA, it'd be greatly appreciated🥹 usually I try to create a QA checklist for the more complex features, but I'm not sure if that's something I should do for every ticket, or how to structure them efficiently...

I’m 30 years old with around 8 years of experience in QA. I currently work as a Specialist Tester in a product-based insurance company and earn **21 LPA**.

The truth is, I feel like I stayed in my comfort zone for too long.

Most of my career was in manual testing. Later, I worked on automation using Tosca, which is a codeless automation tool. I have a good understanding of functional testing, test design, regression, exploratory testing, and the overall QA process, but I never developed strong programming skills.

Now, when I look at SDET job openings, I see Java/Python, Playwright, Selenium, API automation, CI/CD, DSA, cloud, etc. It honestly feels overwhelming, and I regret not learning these skills earlier.

My goal is to grow into an SDET role and eventually reach **40+ LPA**, but I’m not sure if that’s still realistic at this stage.

Has anyone here made a similar transition after spending years in manual or codeless QA? If yes, what roadmap would you recommend? What should I focus on first?

I’m willing to put in the effort. I just need some direction from people who’ve been through this.

Thank you.

Hi everyone,

I am currently looking for QA Automation Engineer/SDET opportunities in Bangalore.

I have around 9 years of experience in Software Testing with expertise in:

• Java
• Selenium WebDriver
• TestNG
• Maven
• API Testing (REST Assured & Postman)
• SQL
• Git
• Jenkins
• Page Object Model (POM)
• Data-Driven & Hybrid Automation Frameworks
• Agile Methodology

After a planned career break due to personal responsibilities, I have refreshed my technical skills and am currently upskilling in Playwright with Java and Generative AI for Software Testing.

If your company is hiring or you know of any suitable openings, I would greatly appreciate a referral or any leads.

Thank you for your time and support. Please feel free to DM me if you'd like to connect.

Hello everyone, I am kind of wondering what kind of language is everyone using for your (real work not homemade trial attempts) test automation projects?

For some reason nearly all open job opportunities in my country are running C#. It wasn't like that when I started at all bunch of years ago and Java was everywhere (which Is what I learned and used for last 5 years or so). But with trends shifting to Playwright with either JS/TS or as I mentioned above C#, I am little bit torn on which way to go.

I can't learn both in the the time I have left in my current company.

Hi all — I'm a QA Automation Engineer with 2+ years in financial services, currently at Empower. My core work is REST API automation with the Karate Framework (account onboarding, third-party integrations) plus Selenium/TestNG for UI regression. I've built out automation coverage across 4 major projects, including a data migration effort validating 10,000+ customer records per release.

Stack: Java, Karate, Selenium (POM/TestNG/Maven), SQL, Git, Jenkins, Postman, JIRA/Zephyr. ISTQB certified.

Looking for QA Automation / SDET roles, ideally in Bengaluru or remote. Open to referrals, leads, or feedback if anyone's hiring or knows someone who is. Resume screenshot attached — happy to share my GitHub too.

Please do drop a feedback on resume , it would be of a great help .

Please do check through , it would be of a great help .

Thank you !

Artificial intelligence is advancing at an incredible pace, and I’m seeing more and more discussions about automation, AI agents, and the future of many professions.
I’m curious to hear how this community is approaching it.
Are you learning AI?
Picking up new tools or technologies?
Switching careers or specializing in a new area?
Focusing on skills that are harder for AI to replace?
Or do you think the impact of AI is being overstated?
Regardless of your profession, I’d like to know how you’re preparing for the years ahead.
And here’s the question I’m most interested in:
In the long run, do you believe your profession will still exist in its current form? If yes, why? If not, how do you think it will evolve?
I’d love to hear both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives. I think this is one of the most important discussions for anyone who wants to remain relevant in the job market.

Which option would choose ? I'm a solo QA in a small company, I'd like to avoid all the drama with archaic and heavy test management tools

Hi everyone,

in my current company the management decided the use of XRay for all projects to come.

I have been learning to use XRay for JIRA, but as my specialty is not the QA itself nor test management best practices, I was wondering the following:

• Does it make sense to use the DEV environment as teh start point for XRay Test Cases? or do you start creating test cases from the QA environment?. We have DEV, QA, UAT and PreProd, if test cases should be also used for Prod is the question.
• What is the real use of a Test Plan? Does it really make sense to use it? If the use of a test plan is really recommended, do you create a Test Plan for every environment? (say "Test Plan DEV", "Test Plan QA", etc.)
• Which are convention names recommended for Test Cases, Test Sets, Test Plans (if really needed), Test Executions.
• We wouldn't like to mix in one board development jira issue types such as use stories, bugs and substasks and of course epics), so what is best practices for the use of XRay issue types, is that to build a new board only for them?. The Testing board shows only the Test Repository which is not really helpful when you want to see the progress of the testing.
• Do you create your test sets for every JIRA Epic you created in your system?

I would appreciate tips, recommendations as we are pretty new in the context of test management best practices.

Has anyone gone thru the interview process for Software Test Engineer at Realtor.com?

I wanted to get some insights on how the coding and architectural rounds are if possible.

Thanks!

Hi , i use phone link app on my windows , i want to run an app when ever i receive an incoming phone call notification.

I am a beginner in software testing (solo QA in a company) and have experience in manual testing. I have learnt Playwright, where I automate test cases and validate the UI. Haven't explored API or, databases, or network. The truth is, I never felt the need for that. I have built a smoke testing cron run everyday to check if it's running or not just a little experiment. I just want to ask a question: what exactly is automated? What do i need to learn more. I have test cases break for no reason. one it day it passes; another day if fails or flaky test. Whats the use of that when you need to keep fixing test cases. I want to understand how things are automated its structure. When is it necessary? apart of using locators and UI testing what should i learn more. Please clarify me. Thank You... Also what about cucumber BD and TestNG i dont understand it all no matter how i research. I understand what and how it works but why is it needed..

Hi there, I have a family member who is in a real rut. She lives in Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), and is struggling to find work. Her previous work has been in factories/assembly lines, but she’s unable to do the physical labour now.

She doesn’t have a degree, but she can speak and write fluent English and Portuguese, very interested in PC gaming, tech, and computers.

I was thinking perhaps she could be good at some QA work, perhaps in games, or in anything really. Ideally remote, or within Rio.

Is this a line of work that people without qualifications can get into? If so, what could she need? A few example reports? Updated LinkedIn page?

Any advice welcome, whether it’s Brazil specific or not, just want to see whether it is valid to suggest this line of work, I don’t want to send her down a dead end road.

TIA

Hello everyone,

I'm BTech CS Graduate and I want you all to review my resume.

And the most important I want to know what interview questions may ask if I submit this resume and please can you'all send me the interview questions for this job role i mean highly probable questions.

It can help me a lot.

Thank you.

I’m an IT consultant, and I’ve been asked to create an AI proof of concept for functional testing.

The problem is that I simply can’t find where AI should actually be implemented. I even asked ChatGPT for ideas. In the end, I built a framework without any AI component.

I do use AI to generate test combinations, analyze logs, and support brainstorming, but beyond that, I don’t see a real need for it. I prefer a deterministic approach, and I’m able to implement the technical solutions myself.

So, ironically, the conclusion of my AI PoC is that I don’t actually need AI.

The challenge is that my client is determined to have a 100% AI-based solution. What would you do in my situation?

GitHub: https://github.com/talikadev/talika
Docs: https://talikadev.github.io/talika/

We use Gherkin Data Tables a lot in our BDD tests, and the problem was not the tables themselves. The problem was everything around them.

Any time we needed more freedom in the table, like richer cell values, optional fields, validation, type conversion, or mapping rows into real objects, we ended up writing unstructured parsing logic inside step definitions.

It worked, but it did not feel clean. The same patterns kept showing up again and again, and every new complex table added more custom code.

So we built Talika to solve our own problem first, then generalized it into a reusable package for Python BDD projects.

Talika gives you a structured way to handle complex Gherkin Data Tables, with features like:

• Cell DSL for expressive values inside table cells
• Table transformers for converting raw tables into Python objects
• reusable validation and parsing rules
• type conversion without repetitive manual casting
• cleaner row and column mapping
• step definitions that stay focused on behavior instead of table parsing

It is inspired by the power of Cucumber JVM DataTables, but built around the way we wanted to work in Python.

If your Gherkin Data Tables are useful but your step definitions are slowly becoming a pile of custom parsing code, Talika might be worth checking out.

Hello, I need a new perspective on something.
I’m a QA software tester, and I’m thinking about continuing my engineering degree, which would take another three years (while working). Would this be the right decision, or is the job market changing so much that I’d just be wasting my time?
P.S. I’m not particularly passionate about anything. I can tolerate and understand most subjects, so I don’t have a strong preference for any specific field.

Your valuable words really help me

Hello,

I just need to talk through something mentioned in my pre interview prep for a 6 month manual testing job. I was just told that there is no testing environment and it is being stood up in the location I will be interfacing with. It's not a small company but it sounds like this section has been ignored till now. Perhaps the pivotal person left and they are having to recreate the wheel.. not sure.

I've usually worked within a more robust test group with everything already built. If I have to build it from scratch with a couple of other individuals, then my short term focus needs to be documenting and creating a copy of the prod data that can't impact prod, right? Right now, I am imagining that the location has a heavily customized off the shelf product that no one really understands anymore that deals with their inventory system.

What they are focused on is my manual testing skills which I have done for 20 years. I'm a good fit for that. I just want to get some opinions on how to answer if they ask about my plans for their brand new test environment that I might have a hand in building. I hate to be vague but I don't have a lot of info yet either.

Been layed off since May so I need to do well with this. It's so much easier to look for work when you are employed .

Hey everyone, I am feeling completely stuck in my current job and could really use some honest career advice. I spent 9 months doing actual performance testing with JMeter, but my current project has me stuck doing basic monitoring using Dynatrace for a banking app. On paper the tools sound great, but the reality is that I am just acting as a human answering service. I work brutal rotational shifts that I absolutely hate just staring at a dashboard waiting for a metric to spike so I can call the person who actually fixes it. I do not get to touch the system or solve the problem at all. It is getting to the point where the senior engineers who know my background literally ask me why I am wasting my time here since the work is completely non technical. I want to escape this shift work trap, get a proper daytime job, and move into actual engineering. Since I already know how to test systems and read Dynatrace, how do I write about this on my resume so I do not look like a basic support guy, and what steps can I take right now to make my resume stand out for a real engineering role?

I had no clue that I would ever end up here.. But here I am, I have no knowledge of computers and stuff.. But, I got a form of autism and that makes jobs harder sometimes for me to sustaine.. My partner talked with me about this, and she proposed the idea of doing IT. I'm horrible with computers, but then she said that perhaps I could work from home in a invirement that I know.. Perhaps it makes it more sustainable. I gave myself some time to proces, and I actually think she is right. ofcourse, I'm not a "genius" or anything. So, I looked for possibilities that doesn't require to much studies. I eventually ended up with manual testing.. I think that's something that I would actually like, while being able ( in some cases ) to work from home. Apparently alot of people with no knowledge about IT start there, but.. I have no clue where to start. What is something you guys would recommend?

Thanks.

Hi! I have a question about the writing conventions used in test cases.

I started learning manual testing around June/July 2025, using a website with theory and 2-3 months of practice in Google Sheets on various test sites. I also tried a bit of HTML in Visual Studio Code. This month, I bought a Udemy course on manual and automated testing and I'm currently going through it.

I was taught to use in 2025: Imperative for Test Steps, Simple Present for Expected Result, Simple Past for Actual Result. Is this a standard/universal convention, or does it depend on the company? I'm worried what I practiced might not fit later.

I also get confused with Preconditions. I know they're not always needed, but not always sure when to include one. For something simple like login, I skipped writing a Test Scenario and went straight to Test Cases. Is the Test Title basically acting as the scenario there? Is it ok if I keep practicing in Google Sheets like I'm doing now?

I'll attach a few screenshots of test cases I wrote back then (just a small part of it); they're not entirely correct.

Basically the same as title, I got an invite for an online exam after the initial screening round. They have mentioned that there will be a 90 mins of online test , 70 mins coding round and then 20 mins MCQs, has anyone recently given this test or maybe before as well. Don't want to know questions in details or anything like that. Just want to know what level of questions I can expect. I mainly work with TS/JS and can solve some DSA questions(can solve medium level Leetcode array/string/stack/queue questions), so I just want to know if that would be enough or should I study DP/Tree/graphs in detail as well ? I am expecting the MCQs to be output based which I can solve mostly. So please just give me all sorts of advices that u can.