Welcome to the 66th issue!

This week, I stumbled upon a series of interviews with QA Leads by Helena Hrubesova.

The main theme was whether you need a tech background (or a degree) to become a successful software tester.

This made me think.

I know many successful testers. How many of them have a degree in computer science, or any engineering field?

Not many, to my surprise. But should I really be surprised?

I did Master's degree in Computer Science. And yes, it helped me learn about software engineering. It helped me get my first internship, too.

But did it really prepare me well for a career in software testing?

Not so much, I'd say. Because 80% of the knowledge I have now comes from what I learned at work, not at the university.

And I agree with what Christopher Null wrote in the article about Computer Science degrees.

That nowadays, you have plenty of places to learn from. And that bootcamps became the opposite of most universities. They teach you the very things you're going to use at work.

So tech background — in terms of training — can help. But a tech degree? Not so much.

For the most part, it's the skill that matters.

Happy testing!

Dawid Dylowicz

Are you planning to go to some job interviews soon? Johanna South has some great tips on how to prepare and perform well.

João Pires wanted to take a more business-oriented job, so he moved from backend development to QA. Here's his story and what he learned.

Note: If you can't access the full article, simply open it in a private tab.

Sam Connelly did a great job presenting a mobile app testing strategy in this hybrid article complemented by a 35-min video. Well worth checking out.

And if you want to learn more, here's a detailed guide on how to write a good mobile app testing strategy by Anna Senchenko.

I like exploring new points of view and this set of responses to Angie Jones's challenge of sharing unpopular opinions about software testing is a great source of new ideas to look beyond the status quo.

Bug bashes are fun, especially when you can get a lot of people involved. In this article, Prashant Hegde shares how to conduct them effectively.

Test automation scripts without assertions?! Paul Grizzaffi says yes. And he has a fair point:

I liked Jennifer DiMatteo's story about the journey of moving from UI testing to back-end testing. It's insightful to see the reasoning behind the decisions that Jennifer made along the way.

How do test automation pipelines and exploratory testing go together? Maaret Pyhäjärvi shared great insights about this connection and its possible variations.

This is a powerful practical piece of advice from Bas Dijkstra who shows with examples how to simplify tests.

Google Lighthouse is a decent tool for checking your website's performance. But do you know it can be automated with Cypress? Marie Drake shares a great example of it.

Zhimin Zhan explains why choosing the wrong automation framework can be harmful to a test automation project. What I found interesting is the example of Microsoft which dropped support for their UI testing tool and started recommending Selenium and Appium instead.

Note: If you can't access the full article, simply open it in a private tab.

Is Playwright — the open-source testing tool — ready to replace WebDriver? Adam Tapper first describes the key features and limitations of the tool and then compares it to WebDriver.

Davit Danelia shows the key differences between Selenium and Selenide test frameworks and instead of choosing a superior one, he explains why he uses both at work.

If you're looking for an API testing tool with a graphical interface, you may want to check out Chris Bongers's getting-started guide to Insomnia.

Barry Ehigiator shares a very interesting take on how pessimism can help in software testing, based on the excerpts of Lessons Learned in Software Testing book (it's a good one, by the way).

Melissa Fisher has just completed her book Testing Stories that includes lots of insights from software testers from around the globe. It's available on Leanpub in the pay-what-you-want fashion and all royalties go to OSMI charity, which is very noble!

In this 10-minute video, Pramod Dutta — a QA Lead at Browserstack — shares a lot of insights about what he looks for when hiring a tester.

CI/CD automation in practice... 🤣

Thanks for reading!

If you like what I'm doing and it helps you become a better tester, you can support my work and buy me a coffee.

Dawid Dylowicz