Hello everyone! While I have the weekend, I can describe a little about my path that led me to the profession of QA Automation Engineer. This path was very long and long. It all started back in 2014. I’m 28, I’m a happy idiot traveler, I’ve been hitchhiking and traveling on a budget to different countries for several years now, earning odd jobs (video filming, reseller), settling in some places for a long time and finding work related to tourism and tourists. I liked my free life, but then came the end of 2014: the crisis and the fall of the ruble. Russian-speaking tourists disappeared for a long time, and I realized that this area is highly dependent on the purchasing power of people, including local and global crises. And I began to think: what could be so interesting that I could do so that this type of activity would not be greatly influenced by all these “world cataclysms”? At that time, I had a pregnant wife, a dollar cost about 90 rubles and the savings we had were barely enough for a couple of months. I have always liked computers and technology. I even studied Delphi programming a little after school, but it didn’t go beyond a calculator. And now, many years later, I thought about the IT field again. I realized that this is a huge market that is now growing at a breakneck pace. It is not so dependent on global crises, and this is precisely the area that is also interesting to me, in addition to travel and tourism. I began to study the market, read articles, and learned what the minimum skills and knowledge are needed to get a junior position as a Java developer. I accidentally found the javarush site, and the first 10 levels were completed in a week. I liked this format, since I remember information best with practice, and there was enough of it here. Taking advantage of the New Year's promotion, I purchased a “lifetime subscription” in January [ such subscription formats were available earlier - editor’s note]. By the spring of 2015, I reached level 20, my savings came to an end, and we had to return to Russia. Upon my return, I began to prepare for interviews. I took an additional course in HTML & CSS, learned how to layout pages and websites, and add simple JS scripts. But after the first dozen interviews, my motivation dropped. I went to a couple dozen more interviews to understand my gaps in knowledge. And I discovered that my knowledge was not enough for the employer at that time. Therefore, for a long time I gave up on studying and the dream of changing my profession. By that time, my son had just been born, it was necessary to provide for the family, so there was no longer “time to get going.” I was forced to work in the field of wholesale and retail trade, warehouses and logistics until 2018. And only at this moment I realized that it was too early to give up the dream of programming and working in IT. I found that my knowledge could be sufficient for developing automated tests in Java and working in QA. And then I decided to give a second try to change my activity. In order to somehow gain minimal work experience, I got a job as an assessor-tester at Yandex. We were manually testing various applications, finding bugs, describing them, creating test cases and checklists. The pay was piecework and low, but the experience was more valuable. Until the fall of 2019, I worked as an assessor, simultaneously reading books and solving problems in Javarush. In October 2019, I quit my job and decided to go on interviews until I was offered an offer. I thought that if I couldn’t do it now, then I wouldn’t have the courage for a third attempt. I compiled a resume and updated it: now in the “Work Experience” column there was a record of a year of practical experience in manual testing of web, mobile and desktop applications. Perhaps this experience was not quite “on the profile,” but it made it possible to distinguish my resume from hundreds of similar ones, and they began to call me for interviews more often. I didn’t even consider the position of an automation engineer seriously at first. I was thinking of working as a manual tester for a year or two, and then looking towards test automation and other areas. But fate decided otherwise. I continued to interview throughout the fall and early winter. In December, my motivation began to disappear again, I tried and prepared hard, knew the theory of testing, and analyzed all the popular questions on java interviews. But for now there was silence. It was only towards the end of December that I received my first offer for the position of a manual tester in one of the large outsourcing companies. I was already filling out the documents with all my might, glad that I had time before the New Year, but at the last moment the customer changed his mind about hiring an employee for the project, or the start of the project was postponed. I was advised to look for third-party options for now. And then I got a call from another outsourcing company and offered to take their internal courses in java testing automation. To do this, you had to pass a short language knowledge test, which was very similar to the Oracle "OCA" certification. After passing the test, internal training awaited those who passed it. It consisted of a series of lectures and homework, during which we wrote several utilities in a short time, got acquainted with JDBC, rest assured, soap, and wrote our own small framework in Selenium. And based on the results of all the tasks, several people were accepted into the staff. So right before the New Year: I’m 33 years old and I receive an offer for the position of “Test Automation Engineer”. I also learned from my own experience that passing interviews, helping to learn programming, and writing various programs and utilities as part of an internship greatly increases the speed of learning and increases motivation. Especially when you see the result of your work and know that you can apply it to a real project. At the moment, the trial period has passed, I have been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer’s projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips: I've been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer's projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips: I've been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer's projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips:
don't be like me ;) learn Java Core better, at least up to javarush level 30-40, then it will be much easier during an internship or probationary period;
GIT is required, there are many different free tutorials + be sure to read about Maven and Gradle, these are the main tools for the project;
master SQL queries at least at a basic level;
Knowledge of HTML+CSS+JS is also important. At least on a basic level;
Spring framework, here it is enough to understand the concept of context with beans.
PS: If anything, ask questions, I’ll answer in the comments, and maybe I’ll add something to the main text, since I simply forgot to describe some points and nuances while writing this text.
This path was very long and long. It all started back in 2014. I’m 28, I’m a happy idiot traveler, I’ve been hitchhiking and traveling on a budget to different countries for several years now, earning odd jobs (video filming, reseller), settling in some places for a long time and finding work related to tourism and tourists. I liked my free life, but then came the end of 2014: the crisis and the fall of the ruble. Russian-speaking tourists disappeared for a long time, and I realized that this area is highly dependent on the purchasing power of people, including local and global crises. And I began to think: what could be so interesting that I could do so that this type of activity would not be greatly influenced by all these “world cataclysms”? At that time, I had a pregnant wife, a dollar cost about 90 rubles and the savings we had were barely enough for a couple of months. I have always liked computers and technology. I even studied Delphi programming a little after school, but it didn’t go beyond a calculator. And now, many years later, I thought about the IT field again. I realized that this is a huge market that is now growing at a breakneck pace. It is not so dependent on global crises, and this is precisely the area that is also interesting to me, in addition to travel and tourism. I began to study the market, read articles, and learned what the minimum skills and knowledge are needed to get a junior position as a Java developer. I accidentally found the javarush site, and the first 10 levels were completed in a week. I liked this format, since I remember information best with practice, and there was enough of it here. Taking advantage of the New Year's promotion, I purchased a “lifetime subscription” in January [ such subscription formats were available earlier - editor’s note]. By the spring of 2015, I reached level 20, my savings came to an end, and we had to return to Russia. Upon my return, I began to prepare for interviews. I took an additional course in HTML & CSS, learned how to layout pages and websites, and add simple JS scripts. But after the first dozen interviews, my motivation dropped. I went to a couple dozen more interviews to understand my gaps in knowledge. And I discovered that my knowledge was not enough for the employer at that time. Therefore, for a long time I gave up on studying and the dream of changing my profession. By that time, my son had just been born, it was necessary to provide for the family, so there was no longer “time to get going.” I was forced to work in the field of wholesale and retail trade, warehouses and logistics until 2018. And only at this moment I realized that it was too early to give up the dream of programming and working in IT. I found that my knowledge could be sufficient for developing automated tests in Java and working in QA. And then I decided to give a second try to change my activity. In order to somehow gain minimal work experience, I got a job as an assessor-tester at Yandex. We were manually testing various applications, finding bugs, describing them, creating test cases and checklists. The pay was piecework and low, but the experience was more valuable. Until the fall of 2019, I worked as an assessor, simultaneously reading books and solving problems in Javarush. In October 2019, I quit my job and decided to go on interviews until I was offered an offer. I thought that if I couldn’t do it now, then I wouldn’t have the courage for a third attempt. I compiled a resume and updated it: now in the “Work Experience” column there was a record of a year of practical experience in manual testing of web, mobile and desktop applications. Perhaps this experience was not quite “on the profile,” but it made it possible to distinguish my resume from hundreds of similar ones, and they began to call me for interviews more often. I didn’t even consider the position of an automation engineer seriously at first. I was thinking of working as a manual tester for a year or two, and then looking towards test automation and other areas. But fate decided otherwise. I continued to interview throughout the fall and early winter. In December, my motivation began to disappear again, I tried and prepared hard, knew the theory of testing, and analyzed all the popular questions on java interviews. But for now there was silence. It was only towards the end of December that I received my first offer for the position of a manual tester in one of the large outsourcing companies. I was already filling out the documents with all my might, glad that I had time before the New Year, but at the last moment the customer changed his mind about hiring an employee for the project, or the start of the project was postponed. I was advised to look for third-party options for now. And then I got a call from another outsourcing company and offered to take their internal courses in java testing automation. To do this, you had to pass a short language knowledge test, which was very similar to the Oracle "OCA" certification. After passing the test, internal training awaited those who passed it. It consisted of a series of lectures and homework, during which we wrote several utilities in a short time, got acquainted with JDBC, rest assured, soap, and wrote our own small framework in Selenium. And based on the results of all the tasks, several people were accepted into the staff. So right before the New Year: I’m 33 years old and I receive an offer for the position of “Test Automation Engineer”. I also learned from my own experience that passing interviews, helping to learn programming, and writing various programs and utilities as part of an internship greatly increases the speed of learning and increases motivation. Especially when you see the result of your work and know that you can apply it to a real project. At the moment, the trial period has passed, I have been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer’s projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips: I've been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer's projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips: I've been supporting the framework and writing autotests in java and cucumber for the 5th month on one of the customer's projects. I like the work, especially the lower level of responsibility compared to developers, hence the lower level of stress. I wrote instructions in confluence on how to enter the project for a beginner. I’ve more or less figured out the project, a lot of the code will have to be refactored someday (by me too), but it depends on how soon I’ll move to another project. Days go by, one task in the jire after another, and I like what I’m doing now. I help simplify and facilitate maintaining the quality of products, automate some processes within the company, relieve the burden of constant regression testing from functional testers, and the responsibilities of writing auto and API tests from developers. The path was difficult and long, but worth it. I can’t guess what will happen next. Maybe I’ll develop in the direction of SDET, or maybe I’ll decide to become a software developer—life will tell. To everyone who has read all this, I can only wish not to give up. If you decide to change something in life, then go all the way, even if there are temporary delays and obstacles along the way. Final tips:
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