Base for beginners in testing
Hey Habr!
My name is German, I have been working in testing for a long time (ex Tinkoff, Ostrovok, Yandex), I give lectures in QA Studio and the founder of the project Junes (free testing of small projects).
I see that there are few vacancies and internships for juniors, and training has become like a constant race – the requirements for graduates are more and more.
It seems that to become a manual tester you need to be a genius or study for several years. You can catch yourself on the impostor syndrome and constant anxiety – “After all, I still don’t know so much!”
What are the requirements for a junior tester?
Know the theory about development methodologies and types of testing with examples. Understand the best UX/UI practices, site vulnerabilities, how to test requirements, understand the difference between 5 types of Severity and not confuse the difference between e2e and system testing. Tell at least 8 test design techniques and remember why heuristics and mnemonics are needed.
Be able to work with Devtools, Jira, Confluense, Postman, Сharles, Kafka, Rabbit MQ, Git, SQL, Docker, X-Code, Android Studio, Kibana, Sentry, Grafana, Linux, SOAP UI, CI/CD, Figma, Swagger, ADB, Firebase, Jmeter, Gherkin, Cypress, Requests, Playwright, Selenium, Allure, Cucumber, TestIt.
Let’s exhale and remember that the main thing is the base.
Base on hards: HTTP, client-server architecture and REST.
QA base: test design techniques, test documentation and types of testing.
The main tool of a tester is eyes, attentiveness, curiosity and kind corrosiveness.
A good tester is not about docker, kafka and selenium.
It’s about soft skills and thinking.
Be curious, optimistic, attentive and able to communicate. And this is about understanding that, first of all, we check the logic, and not the layout pixel by pixel and typos.
You can learn all development methodologies and figure out how to work with 30 tools. And after going to work, you will use only 4-5 tools. But on different projects it can be different 4-5 tools. And the methodology will be for all (or almost all) Agile.
In my experience at school, 90% of junior testers do not use git at their first job. There are guys who have not made a single sql query in a year
(not because they can’t, but because they don’t need to).
Many companies do not allow a junior tester to CI/CD.
And the most popular tool after going to work is Devtools.
I want to end with knowledge of tools and theory is important, but no need to get hung up and despair if you are confused about the difference between a simulator and an emulator. Either you can’t fire up a git, or you couldn’t run jmeter.
These are not game changers. Keep learning and don’t be discouraged.
And do not think that you are a bad tester if you have been in the profession for two years, but have not worked with Kafka or do not know how to use SOAP UI.
You are normal.
And as soon as the need comes, you will learn in one night and a couple of cans of red bull.
* * * * * * * *
If the material was useful to you, subscribe to the studio channel,
I’m in charge here: @qa_studioAnd if you have your own website, bot or no-code solution – write to Junes. We will test for free and with a buzz.
