Topic
What are the Key Skills Required for an Automation Tester?
Key Skills Required for an Automation Tester
Expertise with latest Automation Testing Tools: In the current Agile day, the industry is looking for speed as well as quality at the same time. Stakeholders and customers worldwide expect an organization to deliver a good quality bug-free application in a small time. That is why, automation testing is on the rise, and being a skilled automation tester, every organization will expect them to have knowledge and experience latest automation testing tools like Selenium, UFT, Postman, Apium, JMeter, Tosca etc. Another essential skill is knowing which tool is the right for a project. Choosing the right tool ensures that the ROI on the investments made in test automation is achieved. Depending on the selection of the automated testing tool, the tester should be able to classify whether certain test cases can be automated or not. Once the tester is well-versed with the automated tools, they can utilize their automation testing skills to design test cases that guarantee good test coverage and speed up the test execution process.
Programming Languages: To be a successful automation tester, the tester should have a good understanding of programming languages like Java, Python, C#, JavaScript, VB script, etc. The automation tester needs to be proficient in these programming languages. The thought process of the automation tester should be to identify and cover all the possible modules that demand automation. The automation tester must have good coding skills in order to design the test scripts. Self-learning is a good way to get acquainted with these programming languages that can help in designing the automated test scripts. Having a little background in programming will not only simplify those automation scripts, but it will also help tester to improve communication with the developer. Not only that, but tester can also participate on in-depth functionality testing, once unit testing is completed.
Domain Skills: Whatever be the domain tester is assigned, effective time should be spent in learning this domain. This helps in understanding the project in a better way and able to understand the scope. This skills helps in Automation Tester to play a crucial role in the team as nowadays with the reduction in team size, they will be the ever needed person for any project they work with. Analysis should be done on External certification in that area and every Automation Tester should complete at-least basic external certification will help them in sustaining in that domain and be a better Automation Tester.
Understanding thorough Business Requirements: An automation tester needs to have a clear understanding of the business requirements. Let’s understand this with an example that all of us must have come across. If anyone is unwell and visit a doctor, the doctor, while examining the patient, also wants to know their medical history and whether they have suffered from any kind of disease or ailment. After that doctor can suggest certain medicines for recovery depending on the overall past and present medical condition. On the same note, a skilled automation tester must know the application inside out, both at the frontend and backend level, before the testing phase begins. Tester must well known like Platform or device requirement where the application is meant to run by end users, Databases used for storing the backend information along with user data, APIs or web services connected to the system and how they are used, All the features and functions expected by the end user or the stakeholder once the application goes live, Whether there are any critical bugs that were left unfixed during the last release and how it may impact the business etc.
Maintaining good Communication and Interaction with all relevant Stakeholders: Communication skills and collaboration are essential for automation testers. This is most important before and during the testing phase as automation testers have to interact with developers, business analysts, product owner, scrum master, business SME and all other stakeholders. Once the automated test scripts are designed, the automation testers need to give a walkthrough to the developers, business, and all other stakeholders. During the test execution process, if any defect retest fails, the testers can also communicate the same to the developers in the daily stand-up meeting apart from raising the defect on a specific tool. Sometimes, environmental issues may appear that could block the testing process and delay the delivery. Maintaining good communication about these issues will avoid any end-time surprises related to the time of delivery/release. So, automation tester need to good in Oral and Written Communication skill along with Problem-solving skills.
Well versed with Agile, DevOps and Continuous Delivery: Automation testing demand in the market is increasing with new-age agile and DevOps methodology replacing the waterfall model. As agile methods involve frequent changes, it is essential to have an automation testing process in place for the same. Automation testers can automate the test scripts for a module to be able to respond to frequent customer-induced requirement changes. To achieve good speed and agility, it becomes essential for an automation tester to automate the testing process and configure them to run automatically when the deployment is completed in a testable environment. Automation and continuous integration tools such as Jenkins, Bamboo and GitLab can help tester to achieve this integration. So, the automation tester should be familiar with the integration tools required for automation.
Experience With Test Management Tools: Test management tools are designed to assist organization in their efforts in managing their testing activities. A good test management tool is the key to avoiding bugs and defects getting into production. As automation test lead, working experience in a test management tool will help them to keep track of how the testing phase is transitioning from one phase to another. Lead will be able to maintain a dashboard, where they can document the test cases according to the phases where they were used, ensuring reusability in future projects as well. As a automation team member, they can report their activities in the tool. Having a test management tool will ensure that all the important information regarding the testing phase are secured and meant to be accessed only by team and the management.
Good functional testing Skills: To excel as an automation tester, the tester should have sound knowledge and experience of functional testing performed manually. It will be beneficial if the tester along with the application knowledge also understands the domain very well. Automation testers should be well aware of the manual testing process and the test techniques that are adopted in the testing phase. It can be challenging and time-consuming for automation testers to design test scripts without having good functional knowledge of the application. If the automation test team has good exposure to the functionality they can achieve good test coverage and better test accuracy.
Able to identify and mitigate the Risk: Though test automation seems like a strategic step in the agile world, there is always a risk associated with the test automation process. Suppose there are changes in the interfaces after the automation test scripts were prepared. In that case, it can cause a problem during the test execution process as irrelevant test results will be generated due to these interface changes. Similar problems might occur in case of changes in business logic. This incurs additional costs to support the changes. Also, it can involve modification of test data and impact other test cases. There can be a risk of issues related to the environment execution. This increases the total time taken for testing as the application is not stable throughout the testing process. Overall increased testing time results in a delay in software delivery. An automation tester needs to prepare a mitigation plan for such risks encountered during the testing phase. The testers need to monitor the test execution process and immediately report any suspicious application behavior to the developers and the stakeholders.
Good Reporting Skills: An automation tester must possess good reporting skills. Automation testers should regularly communicate the status of the application under test to all the stakeholders. The practice of regular reporting leads to better coordination of the overall test project. Also, it gives transparency to the project management in terms of the test execution status, show stopper and critical bugs in the application, defect closure status, release timelines, etc. which eventually helps them to make better decisions where needed.