Tech Talks With Sarah Watkins

The business landscape is quickly transforming with the introduction of business-specific software solutions and dedicated applications. Besides, the growing need of technology has even made both developers and users realize the need for immersive user experience bring quality assurance services into the focus.  

Besides, the need for sustaining the competition and creating technology that could enhance the digital landscape requires effective consideration to software testing. This includes keeping checks on performance, functionality, usability, and everything that can reform the user experience.  

Nevertheless, sustaining the quality assurance and software testing objectives require working on everything that can smoothen the development lifecycle. It is not only essential to create products that are rich but even introduce technology which is more influential, high-performing, and of course a revenue booster.  

However, working on such solutions require deep industry knowledge of the trends and everything that could impact the end-user experience. Be it an industry-specific product or an application made for general users, the right understanding is crucial.  

With that notion in mind, this time, our in-house expert, Sandeep Vashisht, interacted with Sarah W. who is working as a software engineer in test at Q2 in North Carolina Area, United States. 

Though Sarah is working in the industry for only 3 years, she as a tester and a human being understands the essence of quality testing which involves focus on technology as well as the need for effective communication and connection between people.  

With that being said about Sarah, let us quickly jump on the interview to find her opinion on the future of the QA industry as well as subjects like driving innovation in testing.  

Sandeep: Who has been your most influential professional mentor? 

Sarah: My most influential professional mentor is Andy Knight, the Automation Panda. He’s a good friend of mine. He also used to be the technical leader on my team. When we worked together, Andy taught me a lot about best practices in test automation and quality. He pushes me to do my best and take on opportunities I‘m not always confident I’m ready for. Even though we no longer work for the same company, we’ve stayed friends and I continue to appreciate his guidance. Andy is the one who encouraged me to first speak at a conference, which eventually led me to speaking at STARWEST 2022 and co-leading a workshop with him. I am grateful to have Andy as my friend and mentor. I would not have had all these opportunities without him! 

Sandeep: What is your top online tool or resource? 

Sarah: My top online resource is Test Automation University (TAU). It’s a free online university run by Applitools. There are so many amazing courses with a wide range of topics. You can take the courses at your own pace. There are quizzes in each chapter that allow you to test what you learned. There is also a Slack space where you can reach out to others in the community and get help when you’re stuck. I recommend TAU to anyone looking to grow their professional skills in testing and quality. There are even some courses on foundational things that developers or others outside of QA may find helpful. Check it out, y’all! 

Sandeep: What do you see as the future of the QA industry in the next five years? 

Sarah: From my experience, it looks like more organizations are seeing value in QA practices, and considering how to better adopt them. I got to meet many QA professionals in 2022 conferences who are passionate about QA, eager to share ideas, improve, and help this industry grow. I have also been exposed to open source communities and am encouraged by how people want to share their knowledge so others can learn. I learned about many tools that are out there for testing and quality needs. 

I think there will be an increase in software development engineers in test and automated test suites as well as a shift in what manual testing focuses on. I think there will be more organizations who have shifted left and right and therefore will have higher quality products. Just like the trends we’ve been seeing in DevOps teams to this point, I think there could be examples of TestOps teams and the industry learning how to best utilize TestOps practices. I think the QA fields are wide for exploration, growth and innovation. I don’t think we’ve yet explored all the possibilities and we’re continuing to improve in the areas that have already been discovered. 

Sandeep: How can a tester innovate? Do you have any specific examples? 

Sarah: There are a few things I think are essential for innovation. This is by no means a complete list, but rather some things that I’ve personally seen drive innovation. One thing I think is necessary for innovation is the awareness to see problems and care enough about improving them. As testers, a part of our job is to find issues. However, we need to care enough to put in the effort to cause a change. It can be easy to just do things because “we’ve always done them this way.” That attitude is the enemy for innovation.  

First, we need to have our eyes open to inefficiencies and pain points. Then ask, “what can be done to make this better?” and consider the practical steps in order to follow up. Consider who else needs to be involved to make it happen. That leads to the next few points: communication and collaboration. This is essential because often innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Change may start with one person, but others are probably needed in order to spread the change and make it happen.  

Another key piece is relationships. I think relationships, collaboration and communication go hand-in-hand. If we build up relationships between our co-workers, they are more likely to trust us, listen to our ideas and be willing to help drive them forward. 

I think it’s also important to have confidence in yourself (or have others who support and encourage you to do things you aren’t confident in). 

In my first tech position I was fresh out of college but struggled a lot with imposter syndrome (still do actually, but I’m working on that) so I lacked confidence. When I first started, my boss and team leaders encouraged me to speak up if I saw anything that could be improved. They told me that my fresh perspective might spot inefficiencies the teams had become accustomed to. However, with my lack of confidence, I didn’t practice it. 

In one experience, I remember living with a process for months that took a lot of time and often caused me frustration. I didn’t communicate my frustration to anyone. On one occasion, hours of my time were wasted because of this process. The next day, I talked with the team lead about it. He immediately realized a change that could be made, which eliminated that frustration from the process completely. I learned such a valuable lesson from that. We made a valuable process change, but only after I spoke up. Another factor which influenced that situation is that I had built up relationships with the teams so there was trust among us and a willingness to listen to new ideas. 

As another example, I am inspired by my co-worker, Steve Hernandez. He is always asking how to make things better. Then he follows up by doing research, trying tools and ideas, demos their benefits, collaborating with other teams and getting buy-in and finally adoption. Because of that, our team has seen a lot of innovation this year. Steve is a good model to me of how a tester can innovate and inspires me to try innovating. 

Sandeep: What are your views about testing in production? 

Sarah: Personally, I haven’t done too much testing in production, though it’s a topic I’m interested in. I’ve listened to several talks at conferences in 2022 about it. For the product I work on, we have a small, automated smoke test suite we run in a production environment after production deploys. 

I think testing in production could be valuable, if done in a safe and purposeful way. Pre-prod environments can only tell us so much about what’s going on with a product, especially since they’re not typically given the same resources and attention as prod. Also, I’m sure many of us have experienced the pain of configuration differences causing issues between environments. 

My team has been working to shift-left and get testing earlier in the software development lifecycle, which has been very beneficial. I think it’s also good to shift-right and make sure we’re getting testing in after each release so we have confidence that our users are having a great experience. 

Sandeep: How can organizations leverage TestOps for better release? 

Sarah: First, I would say organizations need to be willing to give TestOps a try and give it a “seat at the table”. I think it starts with a mindset. Organizations should realize that TestOps is valuable and not a secondary thing that will only be thought about if time, budget, etc. allow for it. 

Yes, TestOps is a newer area, so there aren’t as many resources, role models, or things defined in TestOps as there may be in other fields. However, I think people need to be willing to give it a try. It can start small. Define the riskiest areas that could be improved by introducing TestOps and start there. Give people the priority to learn and implement TestOps practices. I think if there is better adoption of TestOps, then organizations can begin to get the benefits it provides. 

Sandeep: Where can people go to find out more about you online? 

Sarah: The easiest place to find me is on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-k-watkins/ 

Thank you so much for taking the time to hear my thoughts. It’s an honor to be part of this community and learn from so many experienced people. I think everyone has something valuable they can contribute, whether they’ve been doing this for months or their whole lives. We all can learn from one another. 

At BugRaptors, we are working to create value with the expanding digital landscape. With access to industry expertise and knowledge that can aid developers, our QA enthusiasts are trained to reinforce the digital objectives of every business and industry aiming to leverage quality assurance.       

Just in case you have any queries related to Quality Assurance Solutions or software testing services, feel free to reach our team through info@bugraptors.com