Cultivating new skills has become a pressing priority in the highly-competitive present-day world. Everyday a new technology emerges and technocrats start exploring it, to eventually adapt these latest technological trends. Interestingly, even a minute change in the data ecosystem can create a ripple effect on various departments within a company.
Software test engineers are also affected by these changes and predestined to get themselves adjusted with such advancements.The role of a tester has become more challenging. No wonder why, a tester needs to enhance his/her skill set to become more efficient and productive. The most common term that rings a bell in our ears, whenever it is correlated with software testing, is functional testing through which a software test engineer evaluates whether a software application is meeting all the requirements with its user interfaces and functionalities remaining intact. But, is this really the case nowadays with numerous technology stacks being added up day by day?
Out of all the heated debates on the present and the future of software testing. Automation, Security testing, and DevSecOps take the lead as these three fields are emerging as the flag bearers for the upcoming trends in testing.
What do we expect from a modern tester?
Expectations are always relative but one should continue to improve his/her expertise to sustain and grow in this tech-savvy world. A modern tester should not only have analytical thinking ability and excellent product knowledge, but he should also know how to code automation scripts as this can reduce the burden of checking regression test cases again and again, which a computer can do in a far more efficient and faster way.
The new age tester should understand the concepts and more essentially be aware of the consequences of security vulnerabilities, which, if neglected, can easily paralyze the whole digital architecture of a company. A constant rise in cyber attacks these days is already giving a signal to organizations to raise their security standards. .
The adjacent discipline that can complement the working style of a software test engineer is DevSecOps-a one man army. Jokes apart! . By acquiring this skill, one can help in developing , Securing the code with a best practice approach and taking other measures such as merging the code on git can go a long way to create a bridge between the developers and software testing engineers.
A path to become one!
I am no expert in creating a flawless path, but I can surely be a companion on the same trail. Keeping aside the day-to-day work that we do as quality analyst, we should continuously seek to increase our competence.
Learning automation is not a one-day task. More efficient automated scripts are most likely to get developed if a developer has thorough knowledge of the product. Choose the language, choose the stack that interests you, and practice regularly by developing small test cases first and BOOM! You will start observing the difference very soon. The end result might shock you as this will reduce the amount of manual effort that we put in executing repetitive test cases.
Reading blogs and keeping yourself aware of the latest trends in the field of cybersecurity is one of the best ways to align your outcomes with security. Learning about the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and participating in bug bounty programs can help you a lot too. You may also consider being a part of security communities on Twitter.
Last but not the least, understanding the concepts of Git and operations related to Git would help you develop your DevSecOps knowledge quite easily. There are multiple online courses available to help out on this.
In the end, all I can say is that just embrace the journey of learning and help others as well. Reach out to others if you need help and watch yourself grow. If you have come this far, then please like and share the blog. Happy learning!!