Testtalks | Automation Awesomeness | Helping You Succeed With Test Automation

Have you ever dreamed of making the transition from salaried automation development engineer or tester consultant? Or have you recently been laid off and feel now is the time to embrace the freelance consulting lifestyle? I’ve thought about it a few times myself, so I thought it would be fun to discover what it takes to actually make the transition and become a full time consultant. In this episode Zack Burt, author of Code for Cash and 30 Days to your First Freelance Programming Client shows the way. So listen up to learn how to take control of your life and never have to work in a cubicle again!

Have you even wondered how you could bring agile acceptance test driven development to the front of your development cycle?  Sure ATDD and BDD sound great, but how is it really implemented in the real world? In this episode Jeanine Rust a software architect-developer in test shares with us how to bring acceptance testing into our organizations from the ground up.  So listen up and hear how Jeanine put test into Dev-Test-Ops 

Load testing is an important part of the performance engineering process. However, the industry is changing and load testing should adjust to these changes. A stereotypical, last-moment performance check is not enough anymore. In this episode Alexander Podelko will share with us his views on how to align performance testing to these new industry trends. Listen up and discover how performance testing can still add value in an Agile world.

Do you have a hard time of getting historical data for your test runs? Do you have flaky test, but not sure which test are consistently flaky? In this episode Hugh McCamphill a Principle Software Engineer in Test with Liberty IT in Belfast shares with us how you can instrument your test result information to provide actionable data, paving the way for more robust, reliable and timely test results. Listen now to discover how you can move away from the ‘re-run’ culture and better support your continuous integration goals of having quick, reliable, deterministic tests.

We had an interesting session this year at the Automation Guild Conference with John Ferguson Smart, creator of the Serenity framework on the Screenplay Pattern. It created a lot of interest and conversation among Guild attendees and speakers alike; so much so that someone in the group recommended that I create a separate podcast dedicated to the topic … so here it is!

Is API testing at the top of your list of things to do this year? Not sure where to start? Or are you currently testing APIs but want to know more about mocking or service virtualization? In this episode Bas Dijkstra, founder of the blog ontestautomation and author of the book Service Virtualization: Implementation, Practices, and Trends for On-Demand Test Environments, shares with us some tips, tools and best practices around API testing.

One of the biggest challenges I see many automation engineers experiencing in 2017 is DevOps – and treating automation tests and infrastructure like code. A few of those technologies, like Jenkins, Docker and Vagrant are critical technologies you should know in order to excel in your career in the coming year. In this episode we’ll be speaking with Wes Higbee author of multiple Pluralsight courses including Getting Started with Jenkins 2, Docker on Windows and Intro to Vagrant. So if you want to expand your automation efforts beyond functional testing in 2017, you don’t want to miss this episode.  

Are you looking for an automation tool that allow your testers and developers to create automated tests fast? In this episode we’ll Test Talk with the creator of Sahi, Narayan Raman. Discover why Sahi open-source and pro might be the right tool for your team.

Happy New Year! Start your New Year’s test automation efforts off right by doing this one thing. Check it out!

Since I’m getting ready to put on my first online conference dedicated to automation, I thought it would be fun to hear about Google’s Test Automation Conference (GTAC) from one of its participants – Greg Paskal. Greg is no stranger to TestTalks. This is his 4th appearance, and he brings his awesome GTAC insight (and some lessons he’s learned) to another can’t-miss episode.

Have you ever wondered how companies like The Huffington Post and Twitter use test automation? Well then, you’re in for a treat with today’s episode as we test talk with Anil Kadimisetty about the tips and tricks he has used working at both companies as an automation architect. He’ll covers a range of topics including distributing load testing, visual validation testing, how to scale up automation teams and much more. Don’t miss this episode if you want to discover some of the real-world automation techniques that top companies use to succeed with test automation.

Today we’ll be test talking about Pester with Adam Bertram, author of multiple Pluralsight courses on PowerShell, and founder of AdamTheAutomator.com. I’m a big believer in the fact that infrastructure code -- just like test automation code -- should follow the same rigor as your application code. Pester is a unit testing framework that was built for people who want to take their PowerShell scripts and modules to whole different level, and really apply professional unit testing abilities to it. If your or your team is performing any type of PowerShell development, you won’t want to miss this episode.

On today’s show we’ll be Test Talking about keyword-based automation (also known as action-based testing) with Hans Buwalda, CTO of LogiGear and a pioneer in action-based methodologies of testing and automation. Hans will share how using action-based testing practices like modularization and keywords can make your tests easier to create, automate and maintain, as well as simpler to understand.

I don't think there’s a more popular topic in test automation nowadays than DevOps. While many folks I speak with have a process in place for most of their applications, one area some are struggling with is how to apply DevOps best practices to their mobile app initiatives.  That’s why I was happy to speak with Guy Arieli, CTO of Experitest -- a company that provides a bunch of cool quality assurance tools for mobile DevOps. If you’re involved with mobile development of any sort, you won’t want to miss this episode.

When you work for a large company, you sometimes need to expand your automation efforts beyond Selenium browser-based testing. What happens when you also need to create automation for applications like Embedded Systems, SaaS or ERP? In today’s episode you’ll discover how to automate embedded, SaaS and ERP systems, so prepare to learn some useful tips and best practices as we Test Talk with Ali Khalid, a test automation expert and enthusiast who has a ton of consulting experience working with all kinds of automation projects.

I’m excited to announce that registration for the Automation Guild Conference 2017 is now open! If you’re involved in test automation on any level, you won’t want to miss this one-of-a-kind, online event. Anyone who is familiar with test automation knows how difficult it is to create automated tests that are reliable and maintainable. Most automation project don’t succeed – but you can do better. Automation Guild will save you valuable time and headaches, because you’ll discover from some of the top automation engineers in the industry what works for their successful projects. In fact, the goal of the Automation Guild conference is to help YOU perfect the craft of creating automation awesomeness and accelerate your automation career. With over 25 speakers, many in-demand automation skills and topics will be covered, including Selenium, GitHub, Continuous Integration, DevOps, REST testing, visual validation testing and more. Whether you’re currently involved in automation or just beginning, we’ve got you cover

On this show we’ll address an extremely common problem most automation engineers have to deal with – running cross-browser tests. Meaghan Lewis a test automation engineer at Lever and a former employee at Thoughtworks (the folks that gave us Selenium). She’ll be giving us a sneak peek at her Selenium Conference presentation: Making Cross-Browser Tests Beautiful.

Communication skills are critical for succeeding in anything you do. This is especially true for folks that work in teams that are involved in the creating and testing of software. On today’s show we’ll test talk with Damian Synadinos about his presentation Workshop: Commutication – An Exploration of Idea Transfer with Words. Damian will share ways in which you can improve your communication skills and avoid the misunderstandings that may be preventing your team from creating automation awesomeness.

I’d like to make a big announcement! It was announced late last week that Selenium 3.0 has been officially released. This is huge. In this week’s episode, I’ll break down everything you need to know about Selenium 3, as well as give you a glimpse into Selenium’s future. After listening, you will know how Selenium 3 will impact your automation efforts, as well as some things to watch out for -- so don’t miss it!

Sure -- you might be working really hard, doing everything that is needed for testing your software, but is what you’re doing really the most efficient way to test? In this episode Melissa Tondi, head of SQE at ShopatHome.com (and one of the best-known thought leaders in the quality engineering space) breaks down the testing process and helps us identify areas that traditionally cause the highest number of inefficiencies within test teams. So listen in and hear what it takes to build a world-class testing organization.