Ask HN: How do I become a world class automation engineer?

32 points by shicky 8 years ago | 11 comments

as titled really, or maybe a better question would be, are there examples of world class automation engineers and if so, who are they?

bklaasen 8 years ago |

Are you based in Dublin? I have twenty years experience as a highly technical tester. I can help you find a meaningful path. Contact details in my profile!

shicky 8 years ago | |

not Dublin myself, further up North but I'll get in touch, thank you for the kind offer!

bklaasen 8 years ago | | |

Looking forward to it! Shout here if you have trouble getting in touch.

Testing can be a satisfying and fun career choice, but in order to grow you need to find a way through the thickets of self-promotion by high-profile consultants and forests of low-quality discussion. There are isolated island communities of folks trying to push the craft forward, but they're doing it without much current or historical context. You need to build your own synthesis. Frankly the field is a mess and it's no wonder testing is held in such low regard.

notduncansmith 8 years ago |

What kind of automation are you talking about? Test automation?

mtmail 8 years ago | |

Yes, based on the user's previous AskHNs it's about test/QA automation.

arbie 8 years ago | | |

Is it disappointing that OP thinks only web testing requires/uses automation engineering?

shicky 8 years ago | |

I did indeed mean test automation, apologies, I should have been more clear.

1111111119 8 years ago |

what do you think a world class automation engineer does?

shicky 8 years ago | |

Improve testability throughout applications by working with their team, setup and maintain test frameworks (hopefully improving them over time), determine what tests should be automated and those that shouldn't, write automated tests, coach team members on writing automated tests and testing in general, add new tools/processes to improve testing, investigate the application in-depth to find risk areas.

I'd be curious if HN think the above includes things that shouldn't be there or is missing a number of items? I'd be curious what the 80/20 for an automation engineer looks like?

ajeet_dhaliwal 8 years ago | | |

I think there's a change occurring recently (last 3-4 years), especially in the larger tech companies with respect to this role. There are still programmers dedicated to writing and maintaining the automation infrastructure but most of the test are expected to be written by feature developers.

Understanding the build system and devops in general is important because if the teams you work with use continuous integration then the test systems interfaces with it.

I work on a team dedicated to making build and automated test reporting better (see my profile) so obviously I have an interest here but I think great reporting is often overlooked and it's crazy because all of the effort involved in automation and writing tests is only valuable if everyone can see the benefits and resolve failures immediately.