Welcome to the 34th issue!

This one is very special to me for two reasons.

First, today is my birthday.

Second, we've reached 1,000 subscribers.

It's the best present you could give me.

Thanks for your trust! 🙏

Dawid Dylowicz  

What I’ve learned from testing the most profitable entertainment product of all time

Ever heard of Grand Theft Auto V? I bet you have. Antonia Landi shared a great story on what she learned as a QA at Rockstar Games. Although testing games is different than testing other software, I found a lot of interesting takeaways that any tester can apply in their role.

PS. It's a premium article on Medium, so if you can't access it, simply open the link in a private tab.

medium.com  

How to Be a QA Leader

Kristin Jackvony shares 7 solid pieces of advice on how to be a successful QA Lead based on her experience.

Quite related to that, I've recently updated my story of joining a startup as a QA Lead.

thinkingtester.com  

Let’s Mind Map Test Notes

I liked the nice blend of presentation slides and text description that Callum Akehurst-Ryan used to explain how to use mind maps for exploratory testing.

medium.com  

Shift Left and QA Responsibilities

The shift-left testing approach has been around for some time now, but what does it really mean for software testers? Rafaela Azevedo explains how the role evolves and what the responsibilities are.

testproject.io  

6 Ways to Do Automated UI Testing in Parallel With Selenium

Great article by Shirley Ong who thoroughly describes six options of parallel web UI test automation, showing the pros and cons of each approach.

PS. It's a premium article on Medium, so if you can't access it, simply open the link in a private tab.

medium.com  

Alternate view of Automation ROI

If you think the test automation's return on investment can only be measured in hours saved, Ali Khalid may make you think again. He made me, at least, and I like this alternative point of view.

quality-spectrum.com  

Don't Start Your Automation Strategy With Tools

Most testers new to automation tend to dive in to finding tools for their work. Reaching for tools first is usually a huge mistake.

Great piece by Dennis Martinez explaining why it's better to learn about what you'll test before you learn what you'll use to test.

dev-tester.com  

Java for QA Automation Engineers: How to Learn?

A very insightful story of how John Selawsky trained 8 Manual Testers into Test Automation Engineers in just 3 months. You may like the mentioned resources!

stickyminds.com  

Treating your Automation Architecture as a standalone project

There's no doubt that treating test code as production code is one of the best practices you can have. Paulo Casanova shares his code examples that can help you design a test framework at a production level of code quality.

medium.com  

Cypress 5.0

One of the most popular open-source web testing tools has recently released a new major version. The biggest change? Test retries! For more details, check the changelog and the migration guide.

cypress.io  

Python libraries to make your code readable, reliable, and maintainable.

Isaak Uchakaev shared a huge list of Python tools and libraries. What's great for software testers is that a big chunk of it can help you in effective test automation. If you're using Python for testing, just check it out!

isaak.dev  

Load Testing using Netling

In this clear step-by-step guide, NaveenKumar Namachivayam presents how to get started with a lightweight and open-source tool for load testing in C# called Netling.

qainsights.com  

Shifting Performance Testing to the left with k6

Marie Drake wrote a very informative overview of k6 — an open-source performance testing tool that you can easily run from your CLI.

mariedrake.com  

Mock Interview with Hiring Managers for Software Testing Positions

This is an absolute hit! Evgeny Kim invited a couple of QA Managers to host mocked interviews with five software testers. At the end of each session, a candidate gets genuine feedback. There's a lot you can learn from that!

youtube.com  

Some bugs are just too powerful... 😂