Welcome to the 178th issue!

I bet that many of you wonder — What's the highest-paying industry for QA?

While there's no simple answer, you may indeed have a higher chance in finance, healthcare, and generally the more demanding areas.

However, it may come at the cost of higher pressure and a more stressful environment.

So instead of relying on the industry to get a better salary, often the best bet you can make is to invest in excelling at your role.

Either by constantly learning, taking on more responsibilities, building your network or broadening your skills and experience.

And the right opportunity will eventually show up.

So, happy testing! 🙂

Dawid Dylowicz  

Introducing StudioAssist — Katalon's GPT-Powered Test Development Assistant

Introducing StudioAssist, an AI-powered coding companion for Katalon Studio. Streamline your programming workflow and develop test automation code like never before. Be a faster, more efficient, and collaborative test developer. Boost your productivity with StudioAssist today — check it out!

katalon.com  

Additive Testing: An Approach to Software Quality

Jay Newlin expands on the test pyramid and introduces the concept of additive testing, describing responsibilities at unit, service and end-to-end levels.

Moreover, Aleksei Sotskov suggests An alternative to Pairwise test design technique.

hunterstrategy.net  

Agile 101 (and how testing fits in)

Sometimes it's good to remind ourselves about the basics. Here's a concise summary of what Agile stands for and how testing fits in by Callum Akehurst-Ryan.

Also, Marie Cruz explains the main concepts behind What Chaos Engineering Is.

cakehurstryan.com  

QA is not a cost center

Dan Petersen boldly emphasises why testing and QA activities shouldn't be treated as a cost.

A good complementary read to that is Santiago Loa's take on Senior Management Support: The Keystone of Supplier Quality Accountability.

medium.com  

Testers are NOT the gatekeepers of quality

Testers play an important role in assessing quality, but the control is not theirs.

A great reminder from Chris Kenst about why we shouldn't think of testers as the ones responsible for quality.

Furthermore, Alexandros Nikoloutsos explains the quality benefits of writing tests from a developer perspective: The dark truth about software testing.

kenst.com  

Why Do QA Engineers Love Finding Bugs but I Personally Hate It

Shahar Barak describes a powerful mindset shift from focusing on catching bugs to preventing them.

Similarly, Matvei Koniaev shares an interesting story: How did we find a hidden bug?

medium.com  

17 Automated Testing Insights from an Industry Expert

Based on his vast experience, Nikolay Advolodkin shares a lot of tips for effective test automation. And if you prefer listening, there's a 20-minute complementary video explaining that as well.

saucelabs.com  

Test Automation Design Patterns: Boosting Efficiency and Code Quality

If you want to step up your test automation game, Denis Peganov describes best practices and shows examples of three common design patterns.

medium.com  

The 3 Attributes of Testability: Operability

When you can't test parts of your product or code, there's a chance there's something wrong with it. Gil Zilberfeld explains why testability is important and how to achieve that.

In relation to that, Rafael Miguel wrote an immersive article on Refactoring as a Technique for Bug Detection.

everydayunittesting.com  

Transitioning from manual to automation QA (using Selenium and Java). What should I focus on learning?

Someone's looking for advice on moving into a test automation role using Selenium with Java. There are a few good tips and resources shared.

One piece of advice might be Kshitij Sharma's recent guide to Mastering Java Selenium: Harnessing the Power of Annotations for Effective Automation Testing.

reddit.com  

A Deep Dive into the 5 Meanings of QA

Dive into the world of Quality Assurance (QA) in our article. Explore the five meanings of "QA": Quality Assurance, Quality Analyzer, Quality Advocate, Quick Attacker, and Question Asker. Gain insights into their unique contributions and why each one is necessary for ensuring software quality. Read more on the TestingPod blog.

magicpod.com  

Any more TestRail alternatives out there?

There are plenty of test management tools on the market, but people often wonder which one to choose. Here are some insights and recommendations from the community.

reddit.com  

Beginner's Guide to Appium 2.0

As officially announced a couple of weeks ago, the popular mobile and desktop test tool Appium 2.0 is finally here. For that occasion, Mohammad Faisal Khatri wrote a comprehensive getting-started guide.

medium.com  

Best practices for using Cypress for front-end automation testing

Kailash Pathak shares some helpful tips and tricks for Cypress that can help you write better tests.

medium.com  

Handling Multiple Login States Between Different Tests in Playwright

Login is one of the most popular and fundamental scenarios in UI tests. Butch Mayhew shows various ways of handling that in Playwright.

playwrightsolutions.com  

Mutation Testing: Improving Code Quality with Stryker

Mutation testing is a technique that allows you to test not only your code, but also your... tests. José Sousa wrote a good overview of Stryker — one of the open-source tools created specifically for that.

medium.com  

Debugging... 😂

Thanks for reading!

If you like this newsletter and it helps you become a better tester, you can say thanks and buy me a coffee.

Dawid Dylowicz