Tester Position

[sethmo]

Hi

I'm starting a new position as a regression tester using automated testing software. I'm pretty excited about the challenge.

I've done a little bit of reading about testing and the position what testers do but a lot of opinions and examples were international. I was just wondering if anyone had advice/insight on what to expect day-to-day and maybe a few tips from guys in similar positions.

I have a BSc Computer Science degree and a solid background in quality management (ISO 9001), so I'm not utterly clueless about testing and QC/QA, I just never thought I'd be doing testing full-time, so that's why I'm asking.

Thanks in advance

 

[zippy]

I haven't done testing, but I work extensively with testers. I once worked in Test Data Management.

Your biggest challenge is in setting up reliable, relevant rest data data. You need to understand how the business does things.

How test environments are setup and maintained varies a lot from company to company. If you have a setup where you can relatively easily load your test data, take backups of the database and code and easily restore back to save points then you are well on your way. I have seen the colour drain from a testers face when they have loaded tons of test data, install the code to be tested and then be told one of the scripts where knackered and it destroyed their data and they can't restore.

Make sure you understand the processes where you work and what the limitations are of those processes.

You should be able to use the same test automation tools to load test data. Some companies provide tools to migrate live data(hopefully same tools anonymise the data ). However often regression testing is done against a mirror, so this saves on this, but the downside is that there may not be any backup and restore facility. Restore means refreshing the mirror which often can only take place over night.

 

[_kabal_]

I assume that you are not a developer and that this will mostly be integration testing?

All you can do is play your part. People don't even need to play your game. A Jenkins setup and solid selenium tests will hold you in good stead. The developers are going to become annoyed, especially if they don't have good unit tests in place and you have identified the edge cases. At the end of the day however this will make the "product" better.
as a developer manager, I find your role invaluable.

 

[sethmo]

I haven't done testing, but I work extensively with testers. I once worked in Test Data Management.

Your biggest challenge is in setting up reliable, relevant rest data data. You need to understand how the business does things.

How test environments are setup and maintained varies a lot from company to company. If you have a setup where you can relatively easily load your test data, take backups of the database and code and easily restore back to save points then you are well on your way. I have seen the colour drain from a testers face when they have loaded tons of test data, install the code to be tested and then be told one of the scripts where knackered and it destroyed their data and they can't restore.

Make sure you understand the processes where you work and what the limitations are of those processes.

You should be able to use the same test automation tools to load test data. Some companies provide tools to migrate live data(hopefully same tools anonymise the data �� ). However often regression testing is done against a mirror, so this saves on this, but the downside is that there may not be any backup and restore facility. Restore means refreshing the mirror which often can only take place over night.

Ah, yes, thanks for the backing up heads-up, I'm definitely noting that! I've seen a few videos of the testing software, tried to get a feel for it, but I guess I'll know exactly what I'm working with during training and in the field.

 

[sethmo]

I assume that you are not a developer and that this will mostly be integration testing?

All you can do is play your part. People don't even need to play your game. A Jenkins setup and solid selenium tests will hold you in good stead. The developers are going to become annoyed, especially if they don't have good unit tests in place and you have identified the edge cases. At the end of the day however this will make the "product" better.
as a developer manager, I find your role invaluable.

Thanks, I'll read up on those. I'm trained as a developer, i.e. I've studied as a dev, but I won't be doing any dev work in this position, it's only testing - black-box, if that makes a difference. I've been in QC situations where I've brought up "minor" issues and I could see the production staff not take kindly to it, but, you're right, it tends to be those minor things that add up and take away from what would otherwise be a good product.