Sponsored Link
Tired of sorting through test data?
Instead of drowning, ask our AI agent: "Is this test flaky?" or "What's breaking our builds?" Get immediate, actionable answers to crush test instability and ship with confidence. Join our short webinar on Nov 13 and see how to make release decisions faster.
saucelabs.com
NEWS
7 Habits of a Successful Software Tester (2025 Edition)
Ryan Craven revisited his own post from a few years ago on what good testers should do, and updated it to match the role and responsibilities of testers in the age of AI.
In relation to that, I found this Reddit discussion insightful — After 8 Years in QA, I Finally Realized Who the Real Enemy Is.
substack.com
Test Leadership as Change Management: Why Your Real Job Isn't Testing
Interested in test leadership? David Ingraham reminds us why testing success depends on culture and adaptability, not just improving testing tools and processes.
Furthermore, Aditya Putra Pratama shares about Rethinking QA Boundaries, such as responsibility and involvement of QA throughout the software development life cycle.
medium.com
The Bug Detection Roller Coaster: A Carnival of Code and Shadows
Do you know that feeling when you find a lot of bugs at the beginning of a project, and then efficiency drops? Maire Grant explains this "fresh-eyes" effect in testing and how product familiarity may impact it over time.
medium.com
The New QA Mindset: Testing AI and LLMs
Testing AI systems differs from testing other types of apps. Vladimir Josifoski explains the differences and gives advice on how to approach it properly.
Similarly, Irfan Mujagić lists Three Red Flags That Your LLM Testing Strategy Is Too Shallow.
qalogy.com
What Makes a Test a Test?
Masoud Bahrami wrote an extensive, thought-provoking overview of the purpose of testing. Well worth the read.
Similarly, Mehdi Samadi explains The Many Meanings of 'Test': From Experiment to Evaluation from the developer's perspective.
masoudbahrami.com
AUTOMATION
AI in Test Automation: What Actually Makes Sense (and What Doesn't)
AI is now embedded in many software development workflows, including testing. But where does it really help in practice? Vaibhav Chavan shares an insightful overview.
Moreover, Artur Burov describes in detail an example of AI-Assisted Test Automation: Real-World Experience with Playwright Agents and GitHub Copilot.
medium.com
How Automation Testing Is Making Me Lazy (And Why That's Not a Good Thing)
As you focus more on automated testing, it's easy to neglect the exploratory aspect of it. Niraj Subedi warns and shares a good reminder.
At the same time, Maksim Laptev explains why Your Automated Tests Are Begging for a Pipeline: How to Stop Being a "Human CI" and suggests how to set up continuous integration properly.
medium.com
How I Approach Performance Testing for Modern APIs
There's some great advice from Abhishek Verma on how to approach performance testing, especially since different systems may have different requirements.
medium.com
Switching from Web to Desktop Automation: 5 Things That Surprised Me
I haven't personally had experience testing desktop apps, so I enjoyed exploring Darrold Dorsey's insights on the topic.
medium.com
Why Your 97% Test Coverage Is a Lie
Ran Algawi shares a good reminder that test coverage metrics might be misleading, and why embracing a culture of thinking about the system and questioning it may be more effective in mitigating more risks.
Moreover, Lakindu De Silva gives a few tips for tackling flaky tests — When "Failed" Doesn't Mean Broken.
medium.com
Sponsored Link
How are QA teams using AI agents to ship faster in 2025?
Join leaders from GitHub, Nasdaq, and Deutsche Telekom and more on Nov 12 as they share how AI agents are transforming their testing workflows. You'll see 20+ AI agents in action, from generating test cases to fixing failures automatically, and learn the strategies helping top teams ship faster in 2025. Save your free spot now!
browserstack.com
TOOLS
How We Built a Secure Local Appium Device Farm Using Cloudflare Zero Trust and Jenkins
Testing on mobile devices? Vikram Revankar shares details of building an automated solution in the cloud using Appium.
Moreover, Josphine Job explains How To Build Stable Appium Tests Using Step-Level Retry with examples.
medium.com
Rearranger: Make Your Tests Expressive, Not Exhaustive
Marian Jureczko describes in detail a handy feature of an open-source JVM-based tool called test-arranger used for creating and handling test data.
towardsdev.com
Sharding in Playwright: Speeding Up Your Test Suites and CI Pipelines
Want to run your Playwright tests faster? Aykut Denizci demonstrates how to achieve that in CI.
medium.com
Using Selenium with Java: Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
If you use Selenium to automate tests, you may want to check out Sithara Dilmini's practical tips to make them more stable and maintainable.
medium.com
When Claude Met Playwright: My First Experiments in AI-Powered Testing
How's writing Playwright tests with AI? Rathinasabapathy Ramalingam describes the experience using the Cursor IDE. You may also want to check out the second part about Building the Autonomous Tester: Claude and Playwright in Full Control.
medium.com
VIDEOS
What can we learn from a simple Web Page with Technical Web Testing?
Looking for a web app to practice your testing skills on? Alan Richardson demonstrates how you can use the Basic Web Page for that, using different testing techniques.
youtube.com
Your Locators Suck (and you don't even know why)
Getting the locators right plays a big role in achieving stable test automation for web apps. Kacper Ciepielewski shares plenty of tips on that during a 22-minute recording.
youtube.com
AND...
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoy this newsletter and find it helpful in becoming a better tester, please consider sharing it with others.
Dawid Dylowicz
Welcome to the 291st issue!
Today, I want to highlight a great reflection from Jitesh Gosai:
What Is a Principal Tester — 5 Years On.
Jitesh describes the responsibilities of this advanced, technical leadership role and how it enables impact across the organisation.
You may use it as inspiration to start learning and practising to help you advance your career.
Happy testing! 🙂
Dawid Dylowicz