
Ask HN: How do I become a world class automation engineer? - shicky
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
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
not Dublin myself, further up North but I'll get in touch, thank you for the
kind offer!

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

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

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

~~~
shicky
I think you're jumping to an awful lot of conclusions there?

The reason I'm targeting automation is that it tends to be done really badly
in most companies. At the moment I feel I do it pretty well but always seek to
improve. At the moment I don't feel like I'm improving much and want to avoid
things staying static for long. Therefore I'm trying to re-evaluate the basics
or gain new insight and get back on track

------
1111111119
what do you think a world class automation engineer does?

~~~
shicky
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
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.

